WhatsApp to Partner With More Indian Banks in Financial Inclusion Push
WhatsApp Pay is an in-chat payment feature that allows users to make transactions via WhatsApp to their contact list.
It is UPI-based payments service that allows you to both send and receive money. It was developed by the National Payments Corporation of India.
WhatsApp Pay was launched in 2018 in India as part of a trial run. In February 2020, the messaging app received NPCI's approval to roll out its digital payment service in a phased manner. In the first phase, WhatsApp will offer payment services to 10 million users in the country. Facebook's WhatsApp plans to team up with more Indian lenders to expand banking services in rural areas and for lower income individuals, the messaging platform's country head said. WhatsApp, which counts India as its biggest market with 400 million users, has already tied up with banks including ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, allowing them to communicate with customers via automated text messages on its business service. Users can send money directly through chat by tapping on the share file icon and selecting ‘payment’. The ‘payment’ section is available on the shortcut menu. Users can check their transaction history and account details in that section. The payment system works on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) method, where fund transfers can be initiated without having to provide bank account numbers and IFSC codes of recipients.WhatsApp Pay allows users to send money only to their contacts after which it enables UPI ID. WhatsApp Pay users could enter the UPI ID and send money. Through QR code, WhatsApp users can also send money to people who are not in their contact list. WhatsApp has said it has complied with India's requests to store customers' data locally.It hired Bose, the co-founder and chief executive of Indian mobile payments firm Ezetap, in late 2018, a move signalling its ambitions in the payments space. Parent Facebook's $5.7 billion (Rs. 43,574 crores) investment in Reliance Industries' digital unit is expected to give WhatsApp an inside track on payments for the Indian conglomerate's retail business, which aims to serve tens of millions of small shops across India "We now want to open up with more banks over this coming year to help simplify and expand banking services, especially to the rural and lowerincome segments," Abhijit Bose, WhatsApp's India head told a fintech summit via a webcast.WhatsApp will also expand pilot projects with banking and other partners to cover financial services such as pensions and insurance.
"Our collective aim over the next two to three years should be to help lowwage workers and the unorganised, informal economy easily accesses three products - insurance, microcredit, and pensions," Bose said. Apart from its partnerships with banks, the US company has also been running its own payments service in India with limited users for more than two years, waiting for regulatory clearances on issues such as data localisation, ahead of a fully-fledged launch.