WhatsApp is the most used application in India with around 400 million users. Its coming in the country changed the face of communication and now, the application has ventured into payments through messenger itself. Through WhatsApp Pay, WhatsApp intends to make online payments as easy and seamless as sending messages.
The company has announced that the feature will now be available to the users from today, across the country. “Starting today, people across India will be able to send money through WhatsApp. This secure payment experience makes transferring money just as easy as sending a message. People can safely send money to a family member or share the cost of goods from a distance without having to exchange cash in person or going to a local bank”, a WhatsApp blog mentioned while announcing the launch of the feature.
The payments through the app are being enabled by using NCPI’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI). WhatsApp’s partnership with NCPI allows transactions with over 160 supported banks. Apart from this, WhatsApp has also partnered with reputed and large banks of India which include the ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, The State Bank of India, and Jio Payments Bank.
To be able to avail of this feature, it is mandatory for the users to have a bank account and a debit card, without which, no transaction will be allowed. To ensure complete security while transacting, users will be expected to enter their UPI pin every time they make a payment. While WhatsApp allows users to send money to others using WhatsApp Pay, it also lets users transfer money to those using any other app that supports UPI. This makes it even more convenient.
WhatsApp Pay is available to users of both Android and iOS. To use this feature, users need to update their application from Playstore/Appstore.
Prior to WhatsApp Pay, money transactions over the phone were happening over applications like Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm. As per reports, more than 2 billion transactions took place on UPI in just October alone. Now, WhatsApp Pay is an addition which is definitely going to give a strong competition to other UPI based payments apps.
Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook WhatsApp commented on the launch of this feature in India as it being a ‘move that will boost “innovation” in payments’ in India.
