WhatsApp Pay, as the new feature is expected to be called, is reportedly in its final testing phase. Reports also reveal that the Facebook-owned company has tied up with SBI, ICICI and HDFC as the bank partners for the feature, which will essentially work on a UPI based payment method. The feature will reveal a ‘Rupees’ symbol under the ‘Attachment’ option in a WhatsApp chat. Using this, users can make fund transfers through a simple one-step process by entering the amount to be transferred and the UPI PIN. The added convenience is that users will not have to exit the chat screens in order to make the payments.
WhatsApp Pay may arrive in India in February, according to a new report.
This is said to allow for simple, peer-to-peer transactions, and merchant transactions in future.
Security concerns present a significant hurdle for Facebook to overcome before rolling it out.
In a major development, WhatsApp will be able to roll out its digital payment platform, WhatsApp Pay, across India after securing a key regulatory approval on Thursday.
Instant messaging platform WhatsApp is set to go live with its payments offering in India by the end of this month, said two bankers aware of the development.
While three private sector lenders - ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank - are ready to roll out the product, State Bank of India is not going to go live in the first phase, they added. All the four banks were in the process of integrating with WhatsApp while the Facebook-owned company had started beta testing with ICICI Bank.
After months of talks and trials, WhatsApp has finally pulled the trigger on payments in its app. Today the Facebook-owned messaging service announced that users in Brazil would be the first to be able to send and receive money by way of its messaging app, using Facebook Pay, the payments service WhatsApp owner Facebook launched last year.
WhatsApp says in its blog post that the payments service — which currently is free for consumers to use (that is, no commission fee taken) but businesses pay a 3.99% processing fee to receive payments — will work by way of a six-digit PIN or fingerprint to complete transactions.
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