This year, Will Cathcart Global Chief of WhatsApp said that, WhatsApp will launch its payment services in India to give an extra edge to Facebook Inc. in terms of digital payments.
WhatsApp is the goto communication app everywhere in India because of low cost Internet access, but the project to launch payments on the Facebook owned messaging app was made late because some misinformation campaigns were circulated on the network due to which government of India increased the scrutiny on it.
The Menlo Park, Californian company, has been trying to fulfill the the country’s regulations which includes to store payment-related information locally in the system.
On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, said in the Q2 2019 Earnings Conference regarding the payments that the company is waiting for the regulatory approval. The founder further said that he has been trying to introduce this feature in other countries to let more people use it within the next year.
The upcoming feature will give tough time to other digital payment services, present in India that includes Google Pay, Paytm, Softbank and PhonePe. Indians, especially the city-dwellers, use these applications to pay for anything whether its groceries or rides.
E-wallet, lending and digital payments has been increasing in India. The Government is empowering their increment to bring capitalists, merchants and consumers towards formal economy.
Will Cathcart said that the digital payments are critical to bring millions of Indians towards digital economy.
Moreover, the global head said that he is ambitious to bring this payment method beyond India as well.
WhatsApp will use Unified Payment Interface (UPI). UPI is India’s standard interface. It is used by numerous digital payment services in India. Last month, it processed more than 750 million transactions while last year it has processed nearly 250 million transactions.
Photo: Jaap Arriens | NurPhoto | Getty Images
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WhatsApp is the goto communication app everywhere in India because of low cost Internet access, but the project to launch payments on the Facebook owned messaging app was made late because some misinformation campaigns were circulated on the network due to which government of India increased the scrutiny on it.
The Menlo Park, Californian company, has been trying to fulfill the the country’s regulations which includes to store payment-related information locally in the system.
On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, said in the Q2 2019 Earnings Conference regarding the payments that the company is waiting for the regulatory approval. The founder further said that he has been trying to introduce this feature in other countries to let more people use it within the next year.
"We're continuing to test payments on WhatsApp in India, and are close to launching in other countries as well.", said Zuckerberg in a call. Adding further, "In the future, we'll enable people to use the same payments account to send money to friends and businesses on WhatsApp, shop on Instagram, or make transactions on Facebook. Being able to send money as easily as you can send a photo will open up new opportunities for businesses."According to TechCrunch report, 400 million Indians, which make the one third of India’s population of 1.3 billion, are WhatsApp users.
The upcoming feature will give tough time to other digital payment services, present in India that includes Google Pay, Paytm, Softbank and PhonePe. Indians, especially the city-dwellers, use these applications to pay for anything whether its groceries or rides.
E-wallet, lending and digital payments has been increasing in India. The Government is empowering their increment to bring capitalists, merchants and consumers towards formal economy.
- Also read: A confidential Facebook research reveals potential threat to Mark Zuckerberg’s flagship app
Will Cathcart said that the digital payments are critical to bring millions of Indians towards digital economy.
Moreover, the global head said that he is ambitious to bring this payment method beyond India as well.
WhatsApp will use Unified Payment Interface (UPI). UPI is India’s standard interface. It is used by numerous digital payment services in India. Last month, it processed more than 750 million transactions while last year it has processed nearly 250 million transactions.
Photo: Jaap Arriens | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Read next: WhatsApp will enable voice message previews in notifications for iOS users
