After receiving approval from the country’s regulators, and following Facebook’s owned Whatsapp introduces its payment service in its biggest market, 400 million users in India, enabling in-app UPI payments for Indian users.
In a video via a blog post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says, “Now you can send money to your friends and family through #WhatsApp as easily as sending a message.” He also added that digital payments were “especially important” during a global pandemic, as they eliminate the need for the in-person exchange of cash.
Actually, the Whatsapp payment service in India should have been announced before now, the service was first launched in India as a beta in 2018, and due to data storage and sharing concerns, a full rollout was delayed for years.
On Thursday, India’s regulatory body for retail payments, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), gave its approval to WhatsApp, and Facebook confirmed the approval and the service rollout in a blog post. Where explained some of its features in a video.
Watch | Mark Zuckerberg says, “Now you can send money to your friends and family through #WhatsApp as easily as sending a message."
Read here: https://t.co/Q9AQFbw3Lt pic.twitter.com/OcrNXQmGaw
— The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) November 6, 2020
At this moment, UPI payments in India are now popular in India, allowing easy transfer of money between bank accounts, and two of the largest UPI mobile payment providers in the country, Google Pay and Walmart’s PhonePe has contributed immersively, both controls around 40 percent of the market.
It is impressive to say that, India’s largest and most popular instant messaging app, WhatsApp has joined the list integrating UPI payments directly into the chat interface, and you can easily send money, just like a message.
WhatsApp’s payment system will use India’s national payments infrastructure, known as the Unified Payments Interface or UPI. Whatsapp is currently working with 5 banks — ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, The State Bank of India, and Jio Payments Bank out of the 140+ supported banks.
In order to start sending money via Whatsapp, Mark Zuckerberg mentioned that you need a bank account and debit card in India, and the rest of the transactions will be smoothly done by WhatsApp. Handling the transfer of money between the sender and receiver.
Tho, the NPCI announced that it’ll protect the UPI ecosystem by capping the amount of UPI transactions any single service can process. Although we are not sure how these limits will be enforced, later on, no one service will be allowed to process more than 30 percent of the total volume of UPI transactions.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) permitted Whatsapp to grow its Payments feature to a maximum user base of 20 million. To start enjoying the new payment feature, you will need to update your app to the latest version on both iPhone and Android.
