Reserve Bank of India Imposes $375,000 Penalty on Amazon Pay

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a $375,000 penalty on Amazon Pay (India) Private Limited.

The move followed the central bank and regulatory body’s finding that the firm was not compliant with RBI’s directions on know your customer (KYC) requirements, RBI said in a Friday (March 3) press release.

The RBI cited Amazon Pay’s non-compliance with rules around both KYC and prepaid payment instruments, according to the press release.

“This action is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the entity with its customers,” RBI said in the release.

In a statement provided to PYMNTS, an Amazon spokesperson said: “We remain deeply committed to operating as per regulatory guidelines and maintaining a high compliance bar, while we innovate on behalf of our customers to offer them a safe and convenient payments experience. We continue to work closely with the authorities to share our commitment with them.”

This announcement comes about three weeks after both Amazon and Google were cleared to expand their online payments businesses in India.

Amazon Pay and Google Pay were among the 32 companies included in a list published by RBI that announced they have permission to act as online payments aggregators in the country.

With this approval, the companies on the list can onboard merchants and take payments on their behalf.

Walmart-backed PhonePe also applied and is under review, according to RBI.

In May 2022, RBL Bank, Amazon Pay and Amazon Web Services (AWS) teamed up to offer unified payments interface (UPI) payments.

It was reported at the time that Amazon Pay would issue the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) allocated UPI ID to RBL Bank with the handle @rapl, creating a streamlined payments experience through RBL Bank’s cloud-based processing infrastructure.

“This partnership with RBL Bank will allow users to pay anyone, anywhere, seamlessly, and instantly through UPI, enhancing their payment experience,” Mahendra Nerurkar, CEO and vice president of Amazon Pay India, said at the time. “This comes as another step towards our endeavor of simplifying lives and driving adoption of digital payments in India.”