Amazon Payments global partner program means competition for PayPal

Amazon Payments is getting beefed up with a new global partner program designed to make the service into an e-commerce competitor to PayPal and Apple Pay; Amazon is using the term 'global' loosely, as the program is available to partners in the US, Germany, UK, and Japan only.

The refreshed service is different than the current 'Login and pay with Amazon' feature -- pictured here -- that some individual merchants already use: it's intended for e-commerce platforms that provide secure payment features to those merchants. Currently on board are Shopify, OpenCart, and PrestaShop, among many others.

For the public, this means you'll no longer have to create a new username and password for different shopping sites: just use your Amazon Payments account for everything, à la PayPal.