RBL Bank Launches UPI Payments Through Amazon Pay

Digital banking is crossing paths with eCommerce payments as RBL Bank, Amazon Pay and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have teamed up to offer unified payments interface (UPI) payments, according to a Mint report Friday (May 20) that noted the bank will offer peer-to-peer and peer-to-merchant transactions in the collaboration.

Amazon Pay will issue the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) allocated UPI ID to RBL Bank with the handle @rapl, the report said, creating a streamlined payments experience through RBL Bank’s cloud-based processing infrastructure.

The collaboration expands RBL’s presence in the UPI space with its AWS-hosted payment processing platform and allows the bank to connect with Amazon Pay’s increasing customer base and transaction volumes.

“As we progress in our digital journey, innovations in payments that enhance our customers’ banking experiences, remains one of our core focus areas,” said Rajeev Ahuja, managing director and interim CEO of RBL Bank, in the report.

“This partnership with RBL Bank will allow users to pay anyone, anywhere, seamlessly, and instantly through UPI, enhancing their payment experience,” said Mahendra Nerurkar, CEO and vice president of Amazon Pay India. “This comes as another step towards our endeavor of simplifying lives and driving adoption of digital payments in India. With a cloud native architecture, we hope to keep raising the bar on availability, speed and customer experience using UPI through the Amazon app.”

Related: PayNearby Teams With Visa, RBL Bank To Launch SoftPoS, mPOS In India

In August, Indian banking and digital payments network PayNearby partnered with Visa and RBL Bank to launch SoftPoS and mPOS for PayNearby’s network of over 1.5+ million retailers.

The lack of development in digital infrastructure in India has slowed down merchants’ adoption of digital payments, and the country’s population density of over 350 per POS terminal is extremely high compared to that of countries like China and Brazil, with POS of 20 and 10, respectively.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also accelerated the increase in demand for contactless payments to reduce the risk of virus transmission.