Amazon Pay acquires app aggregator platform Tapzo

Amazon has acquired Indian app company Tapzo in a deal to bolster its digital payments offering.

According to the Economic Times, the deal will be valued between $40-45 million, while co-founders Ankur Singla and Vishal Pal Chaudhary will be brought onto the Amazon team to continue development of the offering. While the acquisition is yet to be confirmed by either party, sources state Amazon is after a shortcut to get in on the mobile money bonanza.

“It would have taken Amazon Pay up to two years to build an entire stack of service offerings to enable efficient use-cases for its payment platform,” one source familiar with the deal stated. “So this acquisition helps them save time and also enables them to spread their cashback offers across a host of services immediately.”

Tapzo is an aggregator platform that allows users to access over 35 apps including Amazon, Flipkart, Ola and Uber through a single screen, but also allows for mobile payments, to pay bills, order cabs and food and book flights and hotels. The most popular service for users to date has been bill payments and recharges, with about 15,000 transactions per month across the two services.

Integrating the Tapzo capabilities into the Amazon Pay business will offer the team plenty of ammunition as the battle for domination in the Indian payments market warms up. While there are several local firms are controlling market share for the moment, PhonePe and Paytm for example, the continued digital revolution in India is attracting the interest on the international scene.

Aside from Amazon, Google has also been carving itself a new revenue stream in India. Its Tez offering has recently been rebranded to Google Pay, and will start offering new services such as pre-approved loans.