Amazon infuses Rs 195cr into payments entity Amazon Pay

In a bid to take on rivals like Flipkart's PhonePe and Paytm, Amazon has infused another Rs 195 crore into its payments arm Amazon Pay.

The funding came from Singapore-based Amazon Corporate Holdings Pvt Ltd and the US-based parent Amazon.com, as per RoC filings sourced by Paper.vc. The development was first reported by ET.

The development comes just over five months after Amazon Pay India received a capital infusion of $40 million (Rs 260 crore). Earlier, in June 2017, the e-commerce giant fuelled a Rs 130 crore investment in Amazon Pay India, through Amazon Corporate Holdings Singapore and Amazon.com, Mauritius. This brings Amazon Pay’s total fundraise so far to over $100.45 Mn.

In the face of increasing competition from the likes of Paytm and PhonePe, the company has been doubling down to bolster its digital payments business in India. To that end, Amazon increased the authorised capital of its payments arm to Rs 2,000 crore last year.

It also brought in  Mahendra Nerurkar as the new head of Amazon Pay India. Before Nerurkar, the company had hired former Citi banker Sriraman Jagannathan to head its payments business and spearhead the launch of the digital wallet in February 2016.