Dive Brief:
- Fintech darling Stripe has become a “a strategic payments partner” for retail behemoth Amazon in the U.S., Europe and Canada under an “expanded global agreement” between the companies, according to an online post from Stripe on Monday.
- The two companies have been partners since 2017, when Amazon tapped digital payments company Stripe to extend its then e-commerce business into Europe and Asia, according to the post.
- As part of the new agreement between the companies, Stripe said it will “expand its use of Amazon Web Services,” which has served as Stripe’s cloud infrastructure provider, to operate and grow its business of catering to internet-based companies worldwide.
Dive Insight:
Stripe called the new agreement an expansion of the two companies’ ties, but made no mention of its work for Amazon in Asia. The post said that the new pact was “deepening the two companies’ long-standing partnership.” A spokesperson for Stripe declined further comment.
“Under the new agreement, Stripe will become a strategic payments partner for Amazon in the US, Europe, and Canada, processing a significant portion of Amazon’s total payments volume across its businesses, including Prime, Audible, Kindle, Amazon Pay, Buy With Prime, and more,” the Stripe post said.
Payments companies are falling over each other to work with Amazon, given its retail reach across the internet, and now in Whole Foods and other Amazon stores. It’s also become a major player in experimenting with new types of payment technologies, including cashierless stores and with digital wallets online.
PayPal, for one, has been seeking to deepen its ties to Amazon. In October, Amazon announced it would start accepting Venmo — a peer-to-peer digital wallet app owned by PayPal — as a payment method for U.S. customers. PayPal plans to make Venmo branded debit and credit cards available in a digital wallet provided through Apple phones online and in stores in what PayPal CEO Dan Schulman last year called a “significant step forward” in the relationship.
A spokesperson for Amazon didn’t immediately respond to request for comment on the agreement with Stripe.
