WhatsApp Pay launches in India, restricted to 20 million users in Phase I: Everything you need to Know!

WhatsApp Inc has launched its Payment feature- United Payments Interface (UPI)-for all its users in India after receiving due approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

WhatsApp's UPI userbase is available now in almost 10 Indian regional language versions of WhatsApp. All the user would require is a debit card with a bank that supports UPI and then he/ she can set it up straight away.

Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer at Facebook was quoted saying that WhatsApp Pay can be accessed in the latest version of WhatsApp. Facebook-owned WhatsApp has finally received approval from NPCI to launch its payment feature after a two-year-long wait mired by a lot of legal issues. 

Key Highlights

•WhatsApp has got the nod from NPCI to offer its payments feature through the Unified Payments Interface. Till now, WhatsApp was operating pilot operations of its payment service in India. 

•WhatsApp Pay can now be used by both Android and iOS users after the latest update on the application. 

•With the launch, WhatsApp joins other payment services offered through the UPI network such as Google Pay, PhonePe and PayTM, which are some of the largest processors of UPI payments, apart from applications of individual banks.

•WhatsApp is currently working with five Indian banks- State Bank of India, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Jio Payments Bank to process payment services.

•Users will be able to transfer funds across 160 banks in India using WhatsApp. 

WhatsApp Pay Restrictions

WhatsApp received a go-ahead to launch its payment feature on the same day when the NPCI also introduced a market share cap of 30 percent on the volume of UPI transactions starting January 2021. This means that WhatsApp can go live on the UPI network and expand its user base but in a graded manner.

What does this mean?

WhatsApp Pay will be allowed to expand its payments user base to only 20 million users in the first phase and WhatsApp has almost 40 million users in India. In the beta phase as a part of pilot operations, WhatsApp Pay serves about 1 million customers.

Why was WhatsApp Pay's launch delayed?

WhatsApp Pay's launch underwent considerable delays because of data localisation norms introduced by the Reserve Bank of India. WhatsApp Pay was also taken to the Supreme Court earlier this year when a plea was filed against it regarding a pilot payment program being run by the company.