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Three sources familiar with the issue told TechCrunch that Amazon is considering converting its payments offering in India into a separate app. The e-commerce company wants to increase the use of Amazon Pay across the country.
Amazon Pay is housed in the company’s main e-commerce application in India. It allows users to pay bills, transfer money, buy insurance, travel tickets, invest digital gold and mutual funds, and purchase travel tickets.
Two sources confirmed that the U.S. tech company has been considering decoupling their payments service from their e-commerce application for about a month and plans to move forward with the plan within the next few months. Another person familiar with the issue said that it has already contacted the NPCI to get approval.
One source stated that some executives at Amazon feel Amazon Pay is not getting enough attention on the ecommerce app. They added that a separate payment platform app with a single focus could help it gain more recognition in the country.
The sources requested anonymity because the discussions are ongoing and confidential. They warned that Amazon , which is currently dealing with other challenges in India may alter its plans or abandon the idea.
A spokesperson for Amazon declined to comment on the story, calling it speculation.
Amazon Pay is ranked sixth among the apps on Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a payments network which is the most popular method of online transactions in India. According to official data, Amazon Pay processed 72.4 million transactions in July, which is 0.5% of the total transactions on the network. Walmart’s PhonePe handled 6.9 billion transactions while Google Pay handled only 5.3 billion.
Amazon isn’t the only company considering similar options in India. Super app strategies a la China haven’t been very successful. Flipkart, its chief Indian rival, consolidated all of its fintech offerings in one vertical late last month, two years after separated from PhonePe.
