WhatsApp Pay To Begin Phased Rollout In India Receives Npci License..
WhatsApp's payment feature, called WhatsApp Pay, is designed to run on the
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) — developed by the National Payments
Corporation of India — which allows users to pay others or do business
transactions through their bank accounts.
 |
WhatsApp Pay To Begin Phased Rollout In India |
WhatsApp Pay, which is so far available to
India users under a pilot, has secured a licence from National Payments
Corporation of India (NPCI) to kick off a phased rollout in the country,
according to a media report. The new development would allow WhatsApp to grow
its payments service that uses the government's Unified Payments Interface
(UPI) to enable mobile transactions. The Facebook-owned company stated offering
WhatsApp Pay to one million users in India in 2018 as a part of the beta
testing, however, it hasn't been able to formally launch the service in the
country due to delay in regulatory approval.
The full rollout would make WhatsApp Pay one of
the largest mobile payments services in India, given the fact that WhatsApp
already has over 400 million users in the country.
WhatsApp began the testing of its payments
service through a trial run back in February 2018. Since then, the instant
messaging app has provided a “Payment” option to its users to make UPI-based
payments, powered by ICICI Bank.
During an earnings call last week, Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg had told analysts that WhatsApp Pay would be rolled out in
several countries in the next six months. The executive had last year also
hinted at the imminent launch of WhatsApp Pay in India. Moreover, alongside
India, Facebook is aiming to bring its payments service through WhatsApp in
other developing markets, including Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico.
One of the prime reasons behind the delay in
the launch of WhatsApp Pay in India is the number of data compliance issues that
Facebook needs to address. The Indian government and the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) had expressed their concerns over some of WhatsApp's features. Cyber
experts in the country have also considered WhatsApp Pay as a threat to the
Indian digital banking ecosystem -- especially when looking at some of the
recent vulnerabilities found in the messaging app.
WhatsApp Pay will give stiff competition to
market giants like Google Pay, Paytm, PhonePe and Amazon Pay. Also, it would
boost UPI-based transactions in the country that hit the mark of 1.3 billion in
December -- with 111 percent year-over-year (YoY) growth.
All this shows a significant growth potential
for WhatsApp Pay in India.
However, it is unclear how Facebook would persuade
regulators in the country over the ongoing data compliance issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment