Meta has just received some great news for the new year as India opts to lift all payment restrictions for WhatsApp. This is a major win for the tech giant as the country is one of the biggest in terms of user market.
It’s also great news for Meta which seeks to compete against other leading fintech rivals operating in that region. The NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) shared more on this front including how the leading payment regulator overseeing the instant payment domain gave the green signal on Tuesday.
This means WhatsApp can roll out its popular WhatsApp pay to all users across the industry. Today, the platform has more than 500 million users in the country. This decision removes the previous 100M user cap seen for WhatsApp Pay. it’s also a major move that highlights a significant shift in the cautious approach taken for the company’s payment ambitions.
As per the NPCI, the company insisted more on how it’s a slow rollout where the initial service was limited to just 40M at the start before extending it to hit a cap of 100M in 2022. This expansion comes under the country’s UPI which processes nearly 13B transactions monthly. It’s now going back and forth with the concerns linked to market concentration. The majority of the market share belongs to Google Pay and PhonePe which gets its support from Walmart. This makes up 85% of the overall transaction share.
We saw the NPCI push back another proposal to put this 30% cap on any app’s transaction share related to this network. Per the NPCI, the rule won’t come into play until 2026.
For now, they are committed to giving rise to payments on the popular texting platform that makes things simple, safe, and reliable. As per one WhatsApp spokesperson, the goal is to increase value and make users’ lives more convenient. With such means, people can book tickets easily and go shopping. They also hope to increase digital payments and carry on with contributions to India’s digital agenda.
Image: DIW-Aigen
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It’s also great news for Meta which seeks to compete against other leading fintech rivals operating in that region. The NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) shared more on this front including how the leading payment regulator overseeing the instant payment domain gave the green signal on Tuesday.
This means WhatsApp can roll out its popular WhatsApp pay to all users across the industry. Today, the platform has more than 500 million users in the country. This decision removes the previous 100M user cap seen for WhatsApp Pay. it’s also a major move that highlights a significant shift in the cautious approach taken for the company’s payment ambitions.
As per the NPCI, the company insisted more on how it’s a slow rollout where the initial service was limited to just 40M at the start before extending it to hit a cap of 100M in 2022. This expansion comes under the country’s UPI which processes nearly 13B transactions monthly. It’s now going back and forth with the concerns linked to market concentration. The majority of the market share belongs to Google Pay and PhonePe which gets its support from Walmart. This makes up 85% of the overall transaction share.
We saw the NPCI push back another proposal to put this 30% cap on any app’s transaction share related to this network. Per the NPCI, the rule won’t come into play until 2026.
For now, they are committed to giving rise to payments on the popular texting platform that makes things simple, safe, and reliable. As per one WhatsApp spokesperson, the goal is to increase value and make users’ lives more convenient. With such means, people can book tickets easily and go shopping. They also hope to increase digital payments and carry on with contributions to India’s digital agenda.
Read next: Meta Quest Downloads Surge on Google Play as Apple Vision Pro Stumbles on App Store
