Adani Group is in talks to expand into ecommerce and payments, according to four people familiar with the matter, as the conglomerate builds a digital business to compete with the likes of Google and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries.
As per the reports by Financial Times, the development comes as move for Gautam Adani, a politically well connected founder, seeking to move on from damaging scandals and diversify his empire into fast growing consumer- facing markets. Adani went on to become Asia’s second richest man by amassing a vast infrastructure and logistics network of ports, airports, and power.
The company is now weighing to apple for license to operate on India’s ubiquitous public digital payments network, the Unified Payments Interface, and is currently in discussions with the banks to finalize the previously announced plans for a co-branded Adani credit card, said the sources.
Simultaneously, the firm is also in negotiations of offer online shopping through India’s fast growing, government- backed public ecommerce platform, the Open Network for Digital Commerce, they added.
ONDC and UPI make up for India’s digital public infrastructure “stack”, which attracts hundreds of millions of users a month and has become popular with groups competing to build consumer technology businesses.
Jayanth Kolla, a Bengaluru based analyst said out of three business conglomerate running the country – Tata, Ambanis, and Adanis – Adani is the one which lacks a significant consumer facing businesses.
