WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, which is betting heavily on India, should launch its payment feature in India at the end of May. WhatsApp Payments has partnered with three private sector banks, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, for the same. However, the government-owned State Bank of India, which was originally integrating with WhatsApp, is not ready to get this service up and running in the first phase, according to a report in Money Control. The report, citing a bank spokesman, said it could be due to the delay in obtaining operating approvals from the central bank (RBI). A WhatsApp spokesperson said that it is constantly working with the government to provide paid access functionality to all its users. Payments on WhatsApp is expected to significantly speed up digital transactions in India, especially in the current Covid-19 crisis. Earlier this year, WhatsApp received regulatory approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to operate WhatsApp Pay in India.
Big splash in the digital economy
WhatsApp Pay was beta-tested in India in 2018, gathering 1 million users, but the government introduced privacy-related regulations soon after, which prevented it from being operational for all users. The beta version launched in February 2018 and offered P2P functionality when users linked their accounts to a bank account. And it continued to comply with RBI data localization regulations ahead of the October 15, 2018 deadline by providing in-home data storage. In compliance with regulations, WhatsApp's plans to roll out its payment service have been delayed, but it is now ready to take off without wasting too much time. The social messaging app has over 400 million users in India and over 2 billion users worldwide. With these many app subscribers, India is currently the largest market for the app. It is no wonder that the upcoming WhatsApp payment service creates quite a stir in terms of digital transactions. WhastApp Pay aims to support already established digital payment gateways in the country, mainly Google Pay and Paytm. It seems that WhatsApp is well prepared for this contest. His relative Facebook bought a 9,9% stake in Reliance Jio for Rs 43.574 crore. The partnership between Facebook and Jio is unprecedented in many ways. Jio Platforms has an estimated user base of over 380 million across the country. WhatsApp Pay should follow in the footsteps of WeChat Pay in China, which is taking advantage of the popularity of its parent platform. WeChat Pay is a leading player in the Chinese mobile payment market, with 800 million monthly active users (MAUs), and its success is due in large part to the fact that it is part of the WeChat ecosystem, which has more than XNUMX billion users. UMA. This is the WhatsApp Pay model now.