WhatsApp plans big investments in ‘payments on WhatsApp’


By MYBRANDBOOK


WhatsApp plans big investments in ‘payments on WhatsApp’

WhatsApp has announced plans to make significant investments in ‘payments on WhatsApp’ across India, including India-first features and driving adoption. On Wednesday, the NPCI relaxed the cap on WhatsApp Pay to 100 million. “UPI has been an unquestioned success, and we believe there is an opportunity for UPI to have even greater impact for the country — especially in rural regions where digital and financial inclusion can significantly improve people’s lives,” said Manesh Mahatme, Director, payments, WhatsApp India.

 

The Meta-owned messaging app got its first greenlight for its payments service from the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) in November 2020 with a cap of 20 million users. A year later, in November 2021, the limit was raised to 40 million users and then the NPCI relaxed the cap.

 

When WhatsApp Pay was allowed to onboard up to 40 million users, the number of transactions per month on its platform remained stagnant at around 2.6 million for the past six months. However, the cumulative value of the transactions rose more than twofold to Rs 240 crore in March, compared to October last year.

 

According to the NPCI data, WhatsApp accounted for a miniscule 2.54 million transactions in March when the UPI ecosystem saw 5 billion transactions in total. As of last month, PhonePe led the UPI universe with 47 per cent market share, Google Pay was at 34 per cent, Paytm 15.4 per cent, Amazon Pay 1.41 per cent, and WhatsApp Pay 0.04 per cent. Other players had around 2 per cent of the market.

 

However industry insiders say NPCI’s reluctance to allow WhatsApp to extend the service to all of its estimated 500 million users in India has hamstrung its plans.

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