WhatsApp initiated its Payments service in its beta form back in February with a limited user base of just one million in the country. A new report now says that WhatsApp Payments may be finally made available to all users in India as early as next week. This will mean that roughly 200 million WhatsApp users in the country will have access to the payments feature by next week.
The payments feature, soon after being launched in beta, was pegged against the likes of Paytm which has been a very popular payments solution in India especially after the demonetisation drive in November 2016.
WhatsApp Payments beta launch earlier this year drew a fiery reaction from Paytm which alleged that the payment solution was launched by Facebook after flouting norms laid out by the NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India). However, NPCI was quick enough to deny allegations and said that WhatsApp received consent prior to launch.
Bloomberg has now reported that WhatsApp is pushing its payments service launch with three banks namely Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank while it claims that State Bank of India will be also part once it has necessary setup for WhatsApp Payments.WhatsApp has been smart with its India rollout plans for new features.
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The WhatsApp Business was made available in India soon after the global launch even as the feature was being examined in the pilot in the country. Now, WhatsApp Payments could benefit from WhatsApp Business availability already with businesses. This will also mean that people may not need Paytm at all and may end up having an entire transaction involving purchasing through WhatsApp Payments.
WhatsApp’s Payments solution is different from what rivals Paytm and others are offering as the service involves person-to-person payments. WhatsApp Payments takes advantage of Unified Payments Interface and already has partnerships with several banks to integrate UPI.
While setting up WhatsApp Payments, the company was already offering a host of banks to configure payments feature in the app. Some of the supported banks included Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, Yes Bank, Airtel Payments Bank, Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, and Bank of Baroda among others.
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