Amazon to stop accepting Venmo payments

After a little more than a year of letting customers make purchases via the Venmo digital payment solution, Amazon is changing course.

The e-tailer, which began offering Venmo as a digital payment solution to select online customers in October 2022 and extended it to all shoppers in time for Black Friday 2022, is wrapping up its acceptance of Venmo after the 2023 holiday season.

In a brief post on its corporate Venmo page, Amazon said that due to “recent changes,” customers will no longer be able to add Venmo as a payment method. Venmo will remain available to users who currently have it enabled in their Amazon wallet until Jan. 10, 2024.

Amazon has not publicly commented on the specific reason or reasons for the upcoming change in its acceptance of Venmo. The retailer will continue to accept Venmo debit and credit card payments, however. Amazon also currently does not take digital payments from Venmo parent PayPal, although it does also accept PayPal credit and debit cards to complete purchases.

In a statement to CNBC, a Venmo spokesperson said that Venmo and Amazon agreed to disable digital Venmo payments. “We have a strong relationship with Amazon and look forward to continuing to build on it,“ the spokesperson said. 

In addition to being able to select Venmo as their payment option during online checkout, customers have also had the option to select Venmo as their default online payment option after adding their Venmo account as a payment method to their Amazon account.

Amazon and Venmo – a brief history

Amazon initially announced that customers in the U.S. would at some point be able to pay with Venmo for purchases on Amazon.com and the Amazon mobile shopping app in November 2021. The e-tailer provided a major boost to Venmo’s status as an e-commerce payment method following its adoption by other online retail players including 1-800-Flowers.com and Eyebuydirect.com.

“Whether it’s paying with cash, buying now and paying later, or now paying via Venmo, our goal is to meet the needs and preferences of every Amazon customer,” Max Bardon, VP of Amazon Worldwide Payments, said when Amazon first announced it would accept Venmo payments in October 2022. “We’re excited to continue to offer customers even more options when it comes to how and when they want to pay for their order.”