The Indian banking giant, State Bank of India on Wednesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with e-commerce player Amazon to develop payment and commerce solutions for customers and small businesses (SMEs).
According to the MoU, SBI and Amazon will develop frictionless payments and commerce solutions for customers and small businesses.
SBI has the largest SME base in the country but most of them aren’t aware of the online marketplaces and how these can boost their businesses. With this deal SBI will also avail its SME clients to sell on Amazon’s platform without any hassle.
“As the premier bank of the country, we are always exploring ways to fulfill the aspirations of our millions of customers. Our partnership with e-commerce platforms like Amazon would give a fillip to e-commerce in India and brings lots of value to our retail and SME customers,” said SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya.
“E-commerce as an industry is at inflection point and SBI stands with all the stake holders – the retail customers, the SME clientele, the large logistics companies, others – in facilitating this defining change,” she added.
“SBI shares Amazon’s philosophy of building customer trust and investing for the long term. We have a great opportunity to work together to transform how India shops and sells,” said Amazon India vice president and country manager Amit Agarwal.
According to a PWC report, the e-commerce market in India will touch $22 billion by the end of 2015. Hence this jump by SBI might be a strategic involvement in the small yet fastest growing e-commerce industry in India.
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