Adani Group eyes digital domination: challenges Google, Reliance in Payments, E-commerce

India’s Adani Group is setting its eyes on the booming digital payments and e-commerce sectors, thereby challenging huge tech giants like Google and Reliance Industries. The company is exploring various courses of actions to establish a strong digital presence in India, according to the report in Financial Times (FT), citing sources in this regard.

The primary objective of the company is to obtain a license to operate on India's prominently used digital payments network - Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Adani aims to enforce seamless payment options to its huge customer base. Furthermore, the Adani Group is in discussion with the banks to design plans for a co-branded credit card. While the details of the credit card program are yet to be revealed, this move would expand their financial services portfolio and potentially attract new customers who are looking forward to credit options.

Adani Group is planning to integrate with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) for its entry into the UPI market. ONDC is a government-backed initiative aiming to create a level playing field for the Indian e-commerce segment. It also offers an alternative to the dominance of already existing players like Flipkart and Amazon. Adani anticipates offering online shopping options with the Adani One app by integrating with ONDC.

"They could, for example, acquire loyalty points through bill payments or duty-free purchases and use them for online shopping, " the people said. Targeting existing users in this way would give Adani “a platform to move into much larger areas", one of the people said. Another added that Adani was planning to add NDTV content to its app this year. However, Adani declined this thought as mentioned in the FT in its report.

Shares of Adani Enterprises traded 0.34% lower at ₹3,278 at 12:35 PM on the NSE.