Key Highlights :

Amazon closes Bengaluru fintech lender Axio's acquisition, obtaining an NBFC licence in India.

Deal allows Amazon to lend directly and expand its financial services footprint in one of its faster-growing markets.

Key Background :

The acquisition of Axio by Amazon is a significant landmark in its India strategy, merging e-commerce and finance to drive greater customer involvement. The deal, done in September 2025 following RBI approval, provides Amazon with a prized asset a direct lending license through Axio's NBFC status. This allows the company to transition from being a marketplace and payment facilitator to a full-fledged financial services participant.

While Amazon has invested in several fintech offerings across the globe, India is a very targeted market due to its massive population, increasing digital penetration, and underpenetrated credit landscape. Ever since, Amazon Pay and other related services were more about transaction enabling, bill payments, and wallet use cases. With increasing pressure from consumers to offer credit-based products like Buy Now, Pay Later and SME business loans, the entry is open for Amazon to venture into lending more aggressively.

The Axio relationship lasts several years. Since 2018, Amazon Pay Later has been supported by Axio, the country's most rapidly growing credit product. The product was quickly adopted, with more than 10 million customers making purchases on the Amazon platform using it. Through the acquisition, Amazon completely owns the infrastructure that supports the service, granting it full end-to-end control over credit distribution and risk management.

Financially, Axio is valuable. The company's estimated ?22 billion loan book as of mid-2025 speaks of solid foundations in consumer and SME lending. For Amazon, it is not only an established loan book but also a well-established risk evaluation, collection, and compliance system key areas for doing business in India's highly regulated financial sector.

Strategically, the acquisition allows Amazon to move away from intermediaries and partners, who have been the model for the majority of e-commerce companies offering credit. Direct lending is a better-margin model and lets Amazon design products according to its ecosystem. In addition, Amazon can take Axio's services to merchants and offer working capital loans and other forms of financing to small merchants, hence growing its seller ecosystem.

This is also a part of Amazon's wider fintech ambitions. Amazon already has wallets, payment aggregation and insurance broking licences. With lending now, Amazon is effectively a multi-service financial institution. This eventually could be an end-to-end financial platform linked to shopping, payments, and credit strengthening loyalty and creating fresh revenues.

Lastly, Amazon's acquisition of Axio is a reflection of its investment in India and its ambitions to be a catalyst for financial inclusion change. By closing the loop between e-commerce and access to credit, Amazon is setting itself up for long-term growth in one of the world's most dynamic markets.

About the Author

Ryan Parker

Ryan Parker is a Managing Editor at Business Minds Media.