Amazon is launching a person-to-person mobile payments service in India that lets Android handset users make instant bank-to-bank transfers to their phone contacts.

Tapping India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Amazon Pay users can also make instore payments by scanning UPI QR codes with the app.Amazon is entering a crowded P2P payments field that includes local giant Paytm and Google, which has seen its app taken up by more than 20 million users. Facebook-owned WhatsApp has also rolled out a service to a limited number of Indians.However, Amazon claims that Indians still lack a simple and intuitive way of making money transfers. The current experience is "sub-optimal due to lack of standard user interface, mandatory cool off restriction for new contacts and multiple log in steps," claims the firm.Vikas Bansal, director, Amazon Pay, says: "Our goal is to make Amazon Pay the most trusted, convenient and rewarding way to pay for our customers. The customers trust their Amazon app and we continue to expand payment use cases directly on the app. "With this launch, we have the largest selection of shopping and payment use cases on the Amazon Android app which provides added convenience and control to our customers.”