The long-anticipated Amazon Pay Later service is finally made available to all of its customers in India.
Amazon India has just launched “Amazon Pay Later”, offering instant credit to online shoppers to shop for products or pay utility bills. The feature allows shoppers to purchase products and pay later in the subsequent month with zero interest or convert their large purchases into EMIs for up to 12 months. It can also be used to pay utility bills like water and electricity, as well as mobile recharges and DTH.
The pay later service from Amazon is not just restricted to bills. It also allows shoppers to purchase groceries and other essential services during the lockdown, thus helping them to procure necessities during this crisis.
“With an easy digital sign-up process, customers will get access to instant credit that they can use to buy any product ranging from daily essentials to electronics and clothing. Customers can also use this credit to complete their bill payments on Amazon.in”
The company said in a statement:
Amazon Pay Later Availability
Similar to Lazypay, Simpl and other pay later services in India, the consumer can choose to pay the amount accumulated the next month or convert it into up to 12-month EMIs at a monthly interest of 1.5% to 2%. It currently offers 3, 6, 9, and 12-month EMI options.
The maximum cap to pay for the consequent month is Rs. 10,000, for 3 months it is 30,000 and for 6, 9 and 12 it is 60,000.
However, as many of the listed products on Amazon have a no-cost EMI option, the interest would be eliminated while choosing the installment option.
But the service is not available for all the offerings available on Amazon eStore. Credit exceptions include jewellery, Amazon Pay Gift Cards, Amazon Pay balance top-up, products from the Amazon Global Store, and bullion (gold or silver).
To offer Amazon Pay Later service in India the eCommerce behemoth has tied up with Capital Float – the digital lender for Amazon Pay EMI as well. Capital Float, in turn, has partnered with Karur Vysya Bank(KVB) as a co-lending partner.
Upgraded from Amazon Pay EMI
The service is a replica of the Amazon Pay EMI launched back in 2018. However, unlike Pay EMI, Amazon Pay Later can be used for almost any product on the website. Amazon Pay EMI required a minimum cap of 8,000 initially, later reduced to 3000. But the money lending service from Amazon allows purchases as low as 1 up to 60,000. This cap, as per the company, has been set by the Reserve Bank of India.
Vikas Bansal, Director, Financing and Lending, Amazon Pay told Gadgets360:
“In the older product Amazon Pay EMI, you could only use it for instalments for big ticket purchases, but what we’ve done now is we’ve upgraded that to Amazon Pay Later, where customers can either use it for their small ticket purchases, for payment experience or convenience, or continue to use this for the large ticket purchases and pay in instalments.”
With its Pay Later service, Amazon hopes to take on competitors like Flipkart, LazyPay, Simpl, and many others. Launched recently, Flipkart Pay Later offers up to Rs. 5,000 instant credit for up to 40 days. LazyPay, which offers up to Rs. 1,00,000 payments every 15 days, allows users to purchase products and services across 250 merchant websites. Simpl allows users a credit line of up to Rs. 20,000 and repayments every 15 days.
Interestingly, Facebook-backed Whatsapp is also reportedly gearing up to launch a similar service soon.
In the future, Amazon hopes to provide its credit facility to other merchant partners like Swiggy and BookMyShow and provide consumers the ability to utilize their credit line both online and offline.
Eligibility Criteria for Credit Line
Amazon has been testing the service for some time with a limited set of users. Now, Amazon Pay Later has been made available for all eligible users. For eligibility, Amazon assesses the consumer’s usage history with Amazon Pay and shopping history with merchants and the marketplace. However, the final decision lies with the lender.
As such service requires Amazon to obtain certain documents, i.e. identity proof, income proof, etc., of users, the security of storing personal information becomes a crucial factor. Amazon India has assured that customer data will not be shared with the lender.
Amazon Pay Later Registration
Visit the Amazon Pay Later registration page on your smartphone. As of now, the service doesn’t provide desktop support. A KYC process needs to be completed to create the account. Amazon is providing two types of KYC, existing KYC of Amazon Pay account or OTP-based eKYC. To determine the credit limit, a PAN number is required. Once the process is completed. The registration status and all future transaction records can be viewed from the Amazon Pay Dashboard on the mobile as well as on Amazon.in website.
