Amazon infuses over Rs 700 Cr in India payments unit

Amazon has infused over Rs 700 crore into its payments unit in India, Amazon Pay, according to regulatory documents.

The fresh infusion comes just ahead of the festive season where the ecommerce giant will compete head-on against Walmart-owned Flipkart and billionaire Mukesh Ambani-run Reliance Industries' JioMart.

Amazon Pay (India) has allotted 700,100,000 equity shares, aggregating to Rs 700.1 crore to the existing shareholder on rights basis, regulatory documents sourced by business intelligence platform Tofler showed.

The shares were allotted to Amazon Corporate Holdings Private Limited and Amazon.com.Incs Limited, the documents filed with the corporate affairs ministry showed.

Amazon did not respond to queries.

Amazon Pay competes with the likes of Flipkart's PhonePe, Alibaba-backed Paytm, and Google Pay.

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In January this year, Amazon Pay India had received Rs 1,355 crore from these entities.

Amazon has been pumping in millions of dollars across various operations like marketplace, wholesale and payments business as it looks to strengthen its position in the Indian market.

In September, a regulatory filing had shown that Amazon had infused fresh capital of Rs 1,125 crore into its Amazon Seller Services unit, while Rs 2,310 crore had been pumped into the business in June.

In January this year, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos had announced $1 billion (over Rs 7,000 crore) incremental investment in India to help bring small and medium businesses online.

Previously, the online retail giant had committed $5.5 billion investment in India, one of Amazon's most important markets outside of the US and a key growth driver.

Earlier this month, Amazon had launched a credit card bill payment feature for Indian users. It will support payments for VISA, Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club, and RuPay credit cards, the ecommerce giant stated in the FAQ section.

(Disclaimer: Additional background information has been added to this PTI copy for context)