Facebook-owned WhatsApp payment service has finally gone live in India. The payments feature is being supported by the top four banks of the country. They are State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank. The WhatsApp Payments feature has received approval from the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) Unified Payment Interface (UPI) system.
After a wait of two years, it was granted approval to go live in November 2020 on a peer-to-peer basis. The users will now be able to transfer money in a manner similar to sending messages. The peer-to-peer (P2P) payment feature is available now in 10 Indian regional language versions of WhatsApp. At present, the NPCI has kept a cap of 20 million users on WhatsApp Payments but that will be eased over a period of time.
Abhijit Bose, Head of WhatsApp, India said, “We’re excited and privileged to partner with State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and AXIS Bank to bring simple and secure digital payments to WhatsApp users across India. UPI is a transformative service and we jointly have the opportunity to bring the benefits of our digital economy and financial inclusion to a large number of users who have not had full access to them before.”
In India, the WhatsApp payment service competes against major players like Paytm, Google Pay and PhonePe, among others. Reportedly WhatsApp will now start with payment services and later foray into larger financial services.
Also Read: WhatsApp Pay In India: Government Allows Facebook Inc. To Operate WhatsApp Payment Services