WhatsApp plans cashback for peer-to-peer transfers
NEW DELHI: WhatsApp will within weeks roll out cashback rewards to lure more Indians to its peer-to-peer payments service, two people with knowledge of the matter said, as the company seeks to compete with rivals including Google. WhatsApp is also testing similar incentives for merchant payments, they said.
The latest move comes just days after WhatsApp won regulatory approval for more than doubling its payments offering to 100 million users in India, its biggest market with more than half a billion users overall.
WhatsApp will before the end of May launch the cashback offer of up to Rs33 ($0.40) for transfers users make on its payments service, which allows contacts to send each other funds from within the messenger app, said the people mentioned above, speaking on condition of anonymity. The incentive, spread over three transactions, will be given even if the amount being transferred is as little as Re 1, in what one of the persons mentioned above called WhatsApp’s “user acquisition drive”.
The WhatsApp cashback amount may appear small, but would be a “compelling enough” reason for users to switch, said Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Research. WhatsApp said it is “running a campaign offering cashback incentives in a phased manner to our users as a way to unlock the potential of payments on WhatsApp”.
Separately, in a broader payments push, WhatsApp is testing a programme where it will dole out cashback incentives for users who pay highway tolls and utility and other bills straight from the app, the two people said.
WhatsApp also wants to test such incentives for those making mobile payments for Reliance Jio, India’s biggest telecom operator, the sources said. Reliance is a partner of WhatsApp whose parent Meta Platforms Inc in 2020 invested $5.7 billion in the Indian firm’s digital arm. WhatsApp did not comment on these plans, while RIL did not respond to a request for comment.
The cashback push comes after WhatsApp in June 2021 conducted an internal study to assess competition in India. “Incentives are among the top sign up reasons for our competitor apps” in India, said the “Winning from behind on India payments” study. WhatsApp also assessed it needs to go beyond peer-to-peer payments as users use rival apps to make merchant and bill payments which, the study said, will be a “more attractive proposition (for users) to switch over” to WhatsApp.
THE MOVE COMES JUST DAYS AFTER IT WON APPROVAL FOR MORE THAN DOUBLING ITS PAYMENTS OFFERING