WhatApp, the chat platform giant, following its monopoly in messaging segment is foraying into digital payments space in India with WhatsApp Pay in a phased rollout. WhatsAPP Pay has successfully completed the testing of its pilot project in collaboration with ICICI bank in the country that began in 2018. WhatApp has recently got the approvals from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for the launch of WhatApp Pay services in the country. The ongoing process of data localisation regulations have caused a great delay in the launch of payment services on WhatApp, however the company has successfully managed to get approvals from the authorities for the same. “The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has granted WhatsApp a licence to operate its digital payment service in a phased manner,” a Reserve Bank of India executive said.             

Bringing-in SMEs Into Digital Domain

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook that fully owns WhatsApp had earlier said that they are planning to launch payment services on WhatsApp in a number of countries including India, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico in the coming six months. "We got approval to test the payment services on WhatsApp with one million people in India back in 2018. And when so many of the people kept using it week after week, we knew it was going to be big when we get to launch," Mark Zuckerberg had said optimistically about the payment services on WhatsApp.  The company is considering a wide range of use cases right from people buying and selling directly to businesses setting up stores, to people engaging with businesses through messaging using UPI, an instant and real-time digital payment system developed locally in India to facilitate inter-bank transactions. WhatsApp Pay once launched will become a tough competitor in digital payments space for the established players such as PhonePay, G-Pay, PayTM, BHIM, etc. considering its massive scale of already active user base of around 400 million users in the country.   This UPI-based and WhatsApp-powered payment service is expected to boost digital payments across the country especially in the SME segment. WhatsApp will offer payment services to over 10 million users in its first phase of rollout.