New Year gift: Amazon Pay gets Rs 300 Cr from its parent

The development comes on the back of media reports of Amazon testing the UPI payments product within a restricted user base. 

Ecommerce major Amazon pumped in an additional Rs 300 crore into its Indian digital payments arm Amazon Pay (India) Private Ltd, documents filed with Registrar of Companies (RoC) show. The funding comes through Singapore and Mauritius-based group entities – Amazon Corporate Holdings Private Ltd and Amazon.com.Incs Limited.

The recent fund infusion by the parent into its Indian payments arm is the fourth in the current financial year, taking the total infusion to Rs 1,340 crore till date.

Prior to this, in November, it received Rs 220 crore from its parent entities. In October, Amazon Pay had raised Rs 590 crore. In July, another Rs 230 crore was pumped in.

Amazon Pay (India) Private Ltd incurred a loss of Rs 334.2 crore in financial year 2018, an increase of 88 percent, compared to Rs 178 crore it incurred in the previous financial year. The increase in loss incurred by the fintech company is despite a whopping increase in its operational revenue to Rs 389 crore in FY18, from a meagre revenue of Rs 4.1 crore in FY17.

The loss comes on the back of increase in the company’s burns to Rs 727 crore in FY18, from the total expenses of Rs 185 crore in FY17. The advertising and sales promotion expenses has also more than doubled to Rs 264 crore in FY18, compared to Rs 124 crore in FY17.

The digital payments arm of the ecommerce major had in August acquired Bengaluru-based app aggregator Tapzo to ramp up its online payments business. The acquisition comes in the backdrop of increased competition between rival ecommerce players’ payments arms – Amazon Pay and PhonePe.

Flipkart-owned digital payments platform PhonePe incurred a loss of Rs 791 crore for the financial year 2018, compared to a loss of Rs 129 crore in the fiscal 2017. Also, One 97 Communications Ltd, which houses the main payments business, reported a loss of Rs 1,490 crore in FY18, compared to Rs 879 crore loss in fiscal 2017.