Amazon has completed the acquisition of Bengaluru-based non-bank lender, Axio, in a move that secures the U.S. retail giant a direct lending licence in India. The deal, which received clearance from the Reserve Bank of India in June, marks a significant expansion of Amazon’s financial services in one of its fastest-growing markets. Mahendra Nerurkar, Amazon’s vice president for payments in emerging markets, said the acquisition had been in progress since December.
Axio, a 12-year-old fintech lender, specializes in digital credit and money management solutions for both consumers and small businesses. With the acquisition, Amazon plans to offer a range of credit products on its platform, including loans at checkout and additional services outside its marketplace. “We are also looking at inventing new credit products to serve the needs of our customers as well as small and medium businesses,” Nerurkar disclosed.
The deal positions Amazon to directly compete with rivals such as Flipkart, which secured its non-banking financial company licence earlier this year through its unit, Flipkart Finance. While most e-commerce platforms partner with banks and NBFCs to provide loans, Amazon’s direct lending capability presents a more lucrative model. Axio, which has partnered with Amazon since 2018 on credit and pay-later offerings, will now operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary, though it will continue to run as a separate business entity.
For Amazon, the acquisition strengthens its fintech presence in India, where it already has approval to issue payment wallets and sell insurance products. Amazon Pay, its payments arm, was ranked ninth by transaction volume on India’s UPI channel in July 2025, according to the National Payments Corporation of India. Axio, which reported a loan book of about 22 billion rupees ($251.4 million) for the quarter ending June, adds significant lending capacity to Amazon’s operations in the country