Amazon has brought back its popular monthly Prime subscription in India. It was removed earlier this year after new guidelines from the Reserve Bank of India asked for the implementation of an additional factor of authentication (AFA) for processing recurring online transactions. Amazon was offering only three-month and yearly Prime subscriptions up until now, but the monthly Rs. 129 Prime subscription plan is now live on the company site. Of course, the monthly subscription comes with a few caveats and cannot be purchased through all electronic methods.

The e-commerce giant has now listed three subscription options for Prime membership. The yearly plan is priced at Rs. 999, whereas the three-month plan is priced at a discounted rate of Rs. 329 instead of Rs. 387. These two plans can be purchased from the Amazon site through all electronic methods. The Rs. 129 per month Prime subscription plan is also listed back on Amazon, but it can only be purchased through credit cards or select debit cards.

Amazon’s terms and conditions page says that the Rs. 129 monthly Prime membership can only be purchased through banks that have complied with RBI’s e-mandate guidelines. All the banks that haven’t complied with the changes may not be able to process any requests for automated payments. For those unaware, the new rule asks for the implementation of an additional factor of authentication (AFA) for processing recurring online transactions.

Due to the new RBI guidelines, Amazon had also discontinued new member sign-ups for Amazon Prime free trial until further notice. That change still remains into effect.

The new RBI mandate asks banks to deploy a one-time AFA for recurring transactions worth up to Rs. 5,000. Transactions above that cut-off will require AFA for every payment. The new guidelines were first introduced in 2019 to prevent consumers from making unrequired recurring payments on their cards. This framework finally came into place on October 1 after several delays.