In a stunning development, WhatsApp has finally received the necessary permissions to roll out WhatsApp Pay in India. The company announced Pay for Indian users almost 2 years ago and since then the feature has been under constant testing.
Last year WhatsApp geared up for the rollout just to be interrupted by the Indian Government who was concerned about Facebook’s data collection policies. The government tasked National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to look into WhatsApp’s proposal and ensure the data collected by WhatsApp was not shared with anyone. Today, an anonymous source from NPCI told Business Standard that the government has given WhatsApp the green light for a phased rollout of WhatsApp Pay in India.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has granted WhatsApp permission to operate its digital payment service in a phased manner.
– NPCI
The news comes days after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gave a green light to WhatsApp Pay after the company assured that it will adhere to all the data localisation norms. In the beginning, the service will be rolling out to 10 million customers. Once successful, WhatsApp will do a full rollout which will make it one of the biggest players in the Indian market with over 400 million users. Last week Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed his plans to roll out WhatsApp Pay to a number of countries in six months.
We got approval to test this (payment services) with one million people in India back in 2018. And when so many of the people kept using it week after week, we knew it was going to be big when we get to launch.
– Mark Zuckerberg
WhatsApp has a huge fight ahead in India as the company will be going against established players like Phone Pe, PayTm, Amazon Pay and Google Pay. The biggest advantage for WhatsApp will be access to over 400 million customers who are already using WhatsApp for their daily communications. If you’re planning on using WhatsApp Pay then be sure to check out our guide on how to set up and send money using WhatsApp Pay.