Delhi: Amazon India on Friday launched its online wallet Amazon Pay Balance, in a bid to increase cashless orders.

“With no additional authentications required, customers get the benefit of fast and smooth checkout (from Amazon Pay). Amazon Pay Balance helps customers store balances for essential items and solves the pain point of tendering exact amount of cash at the time of delivery." the company said in a statement.

The company, which does not offer an online wallet based payment option, has introduced a payment option similar to how mobile wallets work. The option is, however, limited to Amazon-based transactions.

Amazon Pay Balance can be credited with money using internet banking and credit or debit card and used for multiple payment for purchases from the e-commerce portal. This feature will also enable faster refunds, as customers will receive the refund amount faster in Amazon Pay Balance than in refunds where the amount is credited to the user’s bank account or credit card.

Amazon’s launch of Amazon Pay Balance comes at a time when demonetisation has adversely effected India’s e-commerce sector, which is largely driven by cash on delivery orders. According to a report by RedSeer Consulting, e-commerce business has seen a 15-20% reduction since 8 November.

However, Amazon India head Amit Agarwal said the business was back to normal despite an initial setback, in an interview to Mint on 5 December.

“We will keep innovating to ensure that our customers have a more hassle free payment experience." said Sriram Jagannathan, vice-president (payments) at Amazon India.

The US-based e-commerce company claims to have 95 million products across hundreds of categories listed on its marketplace in India operated by Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd.

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