New rules may throttle plans by Amazon, Walmart to expand buy-now-pay-later schemes. Read more at straitstimes.com.
MUMBAI - India's stricter digital lending rules have disrupted card services of foreign-backed fin-tech firms and jeopardised loan offerings of Amazon, prompting companies to chart a lobbying pushback, according to industry sources and a document seen by Reuters.
The new rules have already hit prepaid card offerings of Tiger Global-backed Slice and Accel-backed startup Uni, which have partnered with banks and allowed users to split purchases into interest-free easy repayments, a feature not available with typical credit cards. Still, Uni suspended its card services this week due to the RBI rules, hitting hundreds of thousands of users, while Slice has put new card issuance on hold.
The new RBI rules, sources say, could impact this route if online merchants can't receive payments directly.