Amazon Pay is an online payments processing service owned by Amazon. Launched in 2007,[1] Amazon Pay uses the consumer base of Amazon.com and focuses on giving users the option to pay with their Amazon accounts on external merchant websites. As of October 2024, the service was available to businesses based in 18 countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, the Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.[2]
 | |
| Type of business | Payment processing |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington, United States |
| Parent | Amazon |
| URL | pay |
| Commercial | Yes |
| Registration | Free |
| Current status | Active |
Amazon Pay announced a partnership with Worldpay in 2019, allowing Worldpay clients to enable Amazon Pay as a part of the same integration.[3][4][5]
Products
editAmazon Pay incorporates a variety of products for buyers and merchants to process online payments.
Amazon Pay
editAmazon Pay provides the option to purchase goods and services from websites and mobile apps using the addresses and payment methods stored in the Amazon account, such as credit cards or a direct debit bank account or the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in India.[6]
Amazon Pay Express
editAmazon Pay Express is a payments processing service for simple e-commerce use cases on websites. It is built on Amazon Pay but without requiring a full e-commerce integration,[7] it can be used to create a button that can be copied and pasted onto a website or added via a WordPress plug-in.[8] It is best suited for merchants selling a small number of products with a single item in each order, such as a digital download.
Amazon Pay UPI
editOn 14 February 2019, Amazon launched Amazon Pay Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for Android users in partnership with Axis Bank. This service issues UPI IDs to its Indian customers to allow for secure payments. The mechanism of Amazon Pay UPI is the same as other UPI apps like BHIM, Paytm and PhonePe. Anyone with Amazon India app can access this service.[9]
By mid-2024, Amazon Pay was one of the top 10 apps on UPI, accounting for 0.5% of all transactions in July 2024.[10]
Evolution
editCheckout by Amazon (CBA)
editCheckout by Amazon (CBA) was an e-commerce solution that allowed web merchants to accept Amazon account information and use Amazon for payment processing. CBA could manage several aspects of the transaction, including order processing, promotional discounts, shipping rates, sales tax calculation, and up-selling. Depending on the merchant's needs, CBA could be integrated into the merchant's systems with manual processing (through Seller Central) or through SOAP APIs or downloadable CSV files. CBA also claimed to reduce the bad debt because of Amazon's fraud detection capabilities. CBA was discontinued in the UK and Germany in 2016 and in the US in April 2017.[11]
Amazon Flexible Payments Service (FPS)
editFlexible Payments Service (FPS) was an Amazon Web Service that allowed money transfer between two entities using a technology built on single, multiple, and unlimited use payment tokens. Merchants managed their service use via API or solution providers. They accessed the account through a merchant account on the Amazon Payments website. The service was launched as a limited beta in August 2007 and, later in February 2009, was promoted to General Availability.[citation needed] FPS differed from CBA because FPS did not handle additional capabilities associated with order processing, such as promotions, tax, and shipping. FPS also provided the payments processing for the Amazon Web Services DevPay service but it was discontinued in June 2015.[12][citation needed]
GoPago technology acquisition
editIn 2013 Amazon acquired GoPago's technology (mPayment) and hired their engineering and product teams.[13] Amazon was interested in the mobile payment business. GoPago's app allows shoppers to order and pay for goods and services before arriving at a company.
Pay with Alexa
editIn 2020, Amazon enabled Alexa users to pay for gas by talking to Alexa.[14]
Security
editOn September 22, 2010, Amazon published a security advisory [15] regarding a security flaw in its Amazon Payments SDKs. This flaw allows a shopper to shop for free in web stores using those SDKs. Amazon mandated all web stores to upgrade to its new SDKs before November 1, 2010. Amazon acknowledged security researcher Rui Wang for finding this bug. The detail of the flaw is documented in the paper "How to Shop for Free Online - Security Analysis of Cashier-as-a-Service Based Web Stores" by Rui Wang, Shuo Chen, XiaoFeng Wang, and Shaz Qadeer.[16]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Launched in 2007". August 3, 2007. Archived from the original on January 21, 2013. Retrieved June 10, 2012.
- ^ https://pay.amazon.com/help/201810860
- ^ "Amazon Pay inks Worldpay integration as it branches out in the wider world of e-commerce". TechCrunch. 20 March 2019. Archived from the original on 2019-03-31. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
- ^ "Amazon, Worldpay Team On One-Click Commerce". PYMNTS.com. 2019-03-20. Archived from the original on 2020-10-25. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
- ^ Berthene, April (2019-03-25). "Amazon Pay is now an option for Worldpay clients". Digital Commerce 360. Archived from the original on 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2020-09-15.
- ^ Mishra, Digbijay (11 June 2020). "Unified Payments Interface: US majors dominate payments play on UPI | India Business News - Times of India". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 3 January 2021. Retrieved 28 June 2020.
- ^ "E-commerce integration". Archived from the original on 2017-12-08. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ "WordPress Plug-In". Archived from the original on 2018-08-28. Retrieved 2017-03-15.
- ^ "Amazon launched Amazon Pay UPI". Archived from the original on 2023-01-02. Retrieved 2023-01-02.
- ^ https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/19/amazon-considers-moving-amazon-pay-into-a-standalone-app-in-india/
- ^ "Amazon Is Making a Big Change--and It Will Heavily Impact Your E-Commerce Site". Inc. magazine. November 29, 2016. Archived from the original on January 27, 2022. Retrieved January 27, 2022.
- ^ "Make Money Fast – Introducing Amazon DevPay". Amazon Web Services. 2007-12-19. Archived from the original on 2022-06-30. Retrieved 2022-04-21.
- ^ "Amazon Bought GoPago's Mobile Payment Tech And Product/Engineering Team, DoubleBeam Bought The POS Business". TechCrunch. 21 December 2013. Archived from the original on 18 February 2019. Retrieved 24 November 2016.
- ^ Hanna, M. "Amazon Alexa Pay my gas". Amazon. Archived from the original on 2021-05-11. Retrieved 2021-05-05.
- ^ "Amazon Payments Signature Version 2 Validation". 2010-09-22. Archived from the original on 2013-02-17. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
- ^ Rui Wang; Shuo Chen; XiaoFeng Wang; Shaz Qadeer (May 2011). "How to Shop for Free Online - Security Analysis of Cashier-as-a-Service Based Web Stores". Archived from the original on 2016-04-13. Retrieved 2011-12-19.