Amazon India, through its digital payment and proprietary wallet platform Amazon Pay, has officially launched its instant credit service, called Amazon Pay Later. This is the latest instant credit service to be introduced in India, and had already been selectively offered to certain users as its beta testing process. To offer the credit line, Amazon Pay has partnered with startup Capital Float, which is handling all the financial responsibilities of Amazon Pay Later. With this offering, Amazon India will look to rival the likes of PayU's LazyPay, Paytm's own instant credit line and other startups to gain a share of a growing market.
How it works
The Amazon Pay Later service is designed keeping the Amazon ecosystem in mind, and is actually a rebranded and slightly tweaked version of Amazon Pay EMI. To use it, access Amazon Pay after signing in. On this page, you should see an option to start registering for the Amazon Pay Later service. While the e-KYC (Know Your Customer) process is absolutely seamless for those who have already conducted the KYC process for their Amazon Pay accounts, those who haven't can also avail it by simply uploading digital copies of their documents, and verifying their PAN, Aadhaar and phone number details.
Once signed up, the app will take a brief moment to show you the eligible credit limit that you can avail. Once the limit is shown, it takes another while for the credit line to be assigned to your Amazon Pay account. You can start availing the Amazon Pay Later service only after the assigned amount shows up on the Amazon Pay tab.
Where can you use it
As part of its terms and conditions, Amazon India clarifies that the Pay Later service cannot be used to buy gold and silver (bullion), or any jewellery — since the prices of precious metal commodities vary each day. Due to the varying valuation of currencies, Pay Later cannot be used to make international purchases either. Lastly, the Pay Later service cannot be used to purchase an Amazon Gift Card or transfer to the main Amazon Pay balance, since differences in product prices may lead to individuals manipulating the system.
Hence, it can be used to only make payments against purchasing products directly from Amazon India, or pay utility bills via Amazon Pay.
Will you have to pay interest?
Amazon Pay Later users will have the option of paying off the entire due amount next month. If you do this, there will be no interest charged at all, and you will simply be paying back what you spent. However, if you have spent more than Rs 3,000, you will automatically become eligible to pay it back in three months. In this case, an amount of interest will be charged. Users who spend over Rs 6,000 on Amazon Pay Later can avail up to six-month EMI, while those who spend over Rs 9,000 and above can avail EMIs of either nine or 12 months. Both of these will charge a monthly interest on the lien amount.
Will your ID data be safe?
In its user disclosure document, Amazon Pay India says that its partner, Capital Float, is the company extending the credit limit, and hence, all details will be shared and handled by Capital Float. While you may not have heard of it, Capital Float is claimed by Amazon to be an RBI-registered NBFC (non-banking financial corporation) that is authorised to lend capital sums to individuals. It further says, "Amazon follows globally recognized and certified data security standards to ensure safety of your data and information. Capital Float is also following stringent data security standards mandated under the Indian law."
What else should you know?
But, in our experience, it has come to light that Amazon Pay Later mandatorily requires you to give Capital Float a one-year authorisation to debit money from your saving account automatically, to clear your dues. The authorisation gives Capital Float permission to withdraw up to your entire credit limit on Amazon Pay Later, from your saving account. While auto debit services are not always a bad idea, what's amusing is that Amazon does not let you make payments via the Pay Later service, unless you do so.
On this note, Amazon Pay's T&C documentation states, "We will run specific promotions for selected set of customers, from time to time, to waive off this mandatory auto-repayment setup condition for purchasing using Amazon Pay Later limit. However, we strongly recommend you to setup this once for hassle-free repayments experience." Given that Amazon "recommends" to set up auto repayment, it feels unintuitive that the service does not work at all until you give a third party NBFC startup access to draw money from your saving account automatically, for one full year. Neither LazyPay and nor Simpl, two apps that News18 can independently confirm about, require users to set up compulsory auto debits in order to use the service.
Will you get RBI moratorium against pending Pay Later amount?
Technically, the Reserve Bank of India has only offered a recommendation for all financial institutions to offer a three-month moratorium period to loan and credit customers, in light of the economic slowdown due to Covid-19. Capital Float, on this note, appears to have not included the option for users to avail a moratorium against their pending Pay Later EMIs, going by users complaining against the company on Twitter. While this is not illegal, it certainly makes for unpleasant end-user experience, and coupled with the compulsory auto debit option, raises a number of questions regarding the amount of faith a user can have.
All things considered, should you use it?
As long as you can avoid it, general good practice is to keep your credit liability in check. In other words, sign up for it only if you must avail the deferred payment option, and credit cards are not an option for you under the present circumstances.
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