After two years of trails with a small group of users, WhatsApp now finally rolls out its native payment system to all Indians. This feature will now expand to all users and lets them send money to each other easily. This is based on the UPI framework, which is made by NPCI, India’s payments regulator. Users need to have a supported bank and a registered mobile number to start.
WhatsApp Pay Rolls to Everyone in India
WhatsApp, the world’s largest instant messenger is now having its payment service rolled to its biggest market – India. It’s reported to have around 400 million users in India itself, and over two billion users worldwide. WhatsApp has been trailing with its native payment system for a while in India, and now makes it official for everyone.
For instance, I’ve been personally using WhatsApp Pay since early this year, and now was forced reset by WhatsApp to enroll everyone afresh. I have re-registered with my bank account and could send money from mine to others just as I send a simple text. Well, the receiver should be having his bank account linked too. And to get this option, both need to run on the latest version of the app.
This isn’t an issue in India, since we’re running on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system, which lets us send money to receiver’s bank account anyway if he’s registered on any UPI platform. The UPI market in India already congested with Walmart backed PhonePe, Alibaba backed Paytm, Google-backed GPay etc.
Thus, a user having UPI registered in any of these apps will be given a unique UPI ID, which can be shared to others as QR code to be able to receive money. To new users registering on WhatsApp Pay, they should be having a valid bank account and their registered mobile number. While it’s noted that WhatsApp has initially started with five banks like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, the State Bank of India, and Jio Payments Bank, others can be registered too.
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