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In a first, Amazon to offer wealth management service – Times of India

MUMBAI: Global retail giant Amazon will offer wealth management services in India, a first for one of the world’s most valued companies. Its wholly owned subsidiary Amazon Pay has tied up with homegrown investment advisory services startup Kuvera to offer wealth management services to 50 million customers in India. Over the years, Amazon Pay has expanded its business in the payments and credit space in the country.
The move by Amazon Pay to offer wealth management services comes within days of a similar one by Google Pay to offer fixed deposits to its customers in India. Industry observers say that the two moves by the two global giants indicate the changing landscape in the Indian financial services space where the sheer size of the market — a 1.4-billion population — is attracting the best and the biggest in the world to have a foothold.
According to Amazon Pay India director Vikas Bansal, the company’s vision is to simplify lives and fulfil aspirations by solving payment and financial needs of every customer. “For our most engaged customers, growing their wealth and investments is a large need, where we think Kuvera can help our customers with their unique offering,” Bansal said.
Started in 2017 and owned by Arevuk Advisory Services, Kuvera is a Sebi-registered investment adviser that provides online personal financial services and has been one of the first tech-enabled platforms that offered customers goal-based, direct plan mutual fund investing in India. More than one million customers, with over Rs 28,000 crore of combined assets, have used its platform. According to Kuvera founder & CEO Gaurav Rastogi, once an Amazon Pay user logs into the app, he would see the wealth management icon on the screen. Once he clicks on it to indicate his willingness to look into the wealth management service, the process will be taken over by Kuvera’s platform. However, every step of this process will be within the Amazon Pay app.Initially, Kuvera will “facilitate investments into mutual funds and FDs”, Rastogi told TOI. Other products will be added over time, he said.
This is the first wealth management tie-up for Amazon anywhere in the world. Under the current arrangement, while Amazon Pay will distribute the wealth management services of Kuvera, the Indian startup’s tech-driven platform will execute and manage customers’ money, Alokik Advani, managing partner at Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, one of the investors in Kuvera, told TOI.