Gautam Adani
The Adani Group is reportedly planning to enter the e-commerce and payments sectors as it seeks to build a digital business that can compete with giants such as Google and India's Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries.
The company is considering applying for a license to operate on India's widely used public digital payments platform, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
According to a Financial Times report, the Gautam Adani-led group is currently in talks with banks to finalise plans for the aforementioned Adani co-branded credit card.
The company is also in talks to offer online shopping services on ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce), a rapidly expanding e-commerce platform in India.
Both ONDC and UPI are key components of India’s digital public infrastructure, attracting millions of users every month and a diverse group looking to start consumer technology companies.
If confirmed, the service will be available through Adani's consumer app, Adani One, which currently offers travel services such as flight and hotel bookings.
Homegrown players like PhonePe, Paytm and Tata have been offering popular UPI-based payment services as well as grocery/fashion shopping via ONDC for many years.
The “interoperable” nature of these networks means that businesses are not obliged to develop their own payment or e-commerce platforms, but can instead conduct transactions through existing providers.
The company's e-commerce and payment services will initially target its current customer base, which includes hundreds of millions of gas and electricity customers and airport travelers, according to sources cited in the report.
For example, customers could earn points for paying bills or buying duty-free items and then redeem them for online shopping. Focusing on its existing user base gives Adani a “platform to expand into the broader space,” said one of the sources cited in the report.
