Amazon Pay making significant inroads into small & medium businesses in India

Over 50 lakh neighborhood stores & businesses use its digital payments infrastructure, with close to 4 lakh SMBs using it in Kolkata, it said.

These SMBs, most of whom earlier transacted only in cash, now accept payments from their customers using Amazon Pay’s QR Code.

The figures were revealed by Amazon’s Senior Vice President, Russell Grandinetti, in conversation with Nandan Nilekani during the session ‘innovating for a better India’ at Amazon Smbhav.

According to the company, the 50 lakh SMBs constitute a diverse set of merchants and entrepreneurs.

More than  25 lakh  operate retail & shopping outlets such as kirana stores, about 10 lakh operate food & beverage outlets such as restaurants & small eateries, over 5 lakh offer services such as salons, close to 4 lakh offer health & medical care while the remaining consist of vocations such as taxi drivers, auto drivers, plumbers and more.

Amazon Pay has also launched the “Amazon Pay For Business” mobile app to simplify accepting digital payments for SMBs.

Currently available on Android, the app can be used by businesses across the country to register themselves, generate a unique QR code and start accepting digital payments.

Customers can use any UPI app to scan the Amazon QR code and make a payment to these businesses.

Mahendra Nerurkar, CEO, Amazon Pay India who moderated the session said “We have built and scaled our digital payment acceptance for SMBs using UPI that is inarguably one of the world’s biggest digital payments platform and look forward to creating more products that transform the way India pays.”