After Flipkart now it is Amazon who is in plans of launching a digital wallet in India. They have been working relentlessly to launch this wallet and to make it a success. Though they haven't explicitly said anything or made announcements regarding such an initiative, they always claim to be just "exploring" this particular sector. They had come out with a digital wallet in the US in 2014, but it did not turn out as they had planned. As a matter of fact they had to shut it down 6 months later. So, they want to be very sure before taking a similar step in India. Amazon is planning not to build one itself rather it plans on going on a shopping spree.
They have been talking about acquiring multiple Indian startups in the digital wallet and payment industry. Last month Amazon bought Emvantage - an Indian startup based in Noida, which incidentally happens to be its Amazon's first acquisition in India. Emvantage is a payments services provider.
To impress upon their seriousness of the issue they recently hired a Former Citibanker Sriraman Jagannathan to head its payment businesses division. Sriranam played a very important part in launching Airtel Money in 2012 and so he is the best for this role.
As on now Amazon uses the gift card system on their website, which is powered by Bengaluru based startup called QwikCilver solutions. It operates on the principle of a digital wallet and the standards issued by the government. It has a limit of 10,000 and can be recharged again as required similar to a digital wallet.
The trend of digital wallet caught up in India pretty quickly and became popular also quite quickly. Paytm is one of the most popular and widely used digital wallets in India. It has more than 120 million users already. Despite digital wallets, cash on delivery is still the most prevalently used option in India. Also, wallets do not bring in more customers, but it is just about the choice that these ecommerce companies can provide their customers with all the options possible.
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