Macquarie: Amazon.com, Inc. Aspires To Be Leader In Payments

Ben Schachter of Macquarie Research utilized some sleek detective work to gain a better understanding of Amazon.com, Inc's AMAZN payments ambitions.

"With so much focus on the dynamic competitive environment for payments, we remind investors that Amazon.com also aspires to be a bigger player in this space," Schachter wrote in a note to clients on Friday. "While some key Amazon payment employees have recently left the firm, we believe that Amazon.com still hopes to offer new services that could make it more competitive in payments."

The analyst adds that Amazon will have to execute "exceptionally well" to gain momentum in payments. The first step towards succeeding in a new space is to hire the right people.

Schachter took a close look at job postings at Amazon to get a sense of its ambitions. What Schachter found was that Amazon aspires "to be the medium through which every customer chooses to pay a merchant, worldwide."

Some of the job postings in payments include the following statements and descriptions:

"We are building on our seven-years of experience in the local commerce category, where we focus on the customer in all the ways they transact off Amazon, through mobile apps, browsers, phones, tablets, websites, etc."

"Delight billions of customers as they buy and sell things in the real world (as opposed to online)."

"Be it driving through a toll booth at 60 miles an hour, paying for your bagel and coffee at a local diner, donating to your favorite charity like the Red Cross, paying for Internet access while flying at 36,000 feet, and a thousand other scenarios."

Bottom line, according to Schachter, Amazon needs to move "significantly faster and more aggressively” to become a legitimate player in payments. The analyst adds that Amazon's current payments offerings (such as Local Register) are “unlikely to work."

Shares are Outperform rated with a $370 price target.