WhatsApp launches payment service in India
WhatsApp today announced it really is starting its payment services across India.
"Starting today, persons across India can send money through WhatsApp. This secure payment experience makes transferring money just as easy as sending a message. People can safely send money to a member of family or share the expense of goods from a distance and never have to exchange cash in person or likely to an area bank," reports our New Delhi correspondent quoting WhatsApp as saying in a blog page post.
It added that the payment feature has been designed together with NPCI using UPI, an India-first, real-time payment system that permits transactions with over 160 supported banks.
WhatsApp, which has over 400 million users in India, will compete with players like Paytm, Google Pay, Walmart-owned PhonePe and Amazon Pay in the Indian market.
"Payments (service) on WhatsApp is currently available for individuals on the most recent version of the iPhone and Android app... We're excited to join India's campaign to improve the ease and make use of digital payments, which is helping expand financial inclusion in India," WhatsApp said in the post adding that users have to have a bank account and debit card in India to send money through the platform in India.
In 2018, the Facebook-owned company had started testing its UPI-based payments service in India, that allows users to utilise the messaging platform to send and receive money. The testing was limited by in regards to a million users since it waited for regulatory approvals to can be found in.
On Thursday, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which runs the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) used for real-time payments between peers or at merchants' end while making purchases, allowed WhatsApp to get started on its payments service in the united states in a "graded" manner, you start with a maximum registered user base of 20 million in UPI.
WhatsApp had launched 'WhatsApp Pay' in Brazil in June this season so that it is the first country where in fact the service was rolled out.
