With over a billion active users on WhatsApp, parent company Facebook is gearing up to dominate the payments space.
The social networking giant has begun rolling out payments on WhatsApp in India, shortly after winning approval from India’s National Payments Corporation (NPCI).
Payments on WhatsApp allows will now allow users to send money to other users directly on the app.
It was designed using the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), an India-first real-time payment system that is supported by over 160 banks in the country.
WhatsApp payments in India.
Users must first have a bank account and debit card in India to set the new payments feature up. Once set up, users can easily transfer money directly between sender and receiver's bank accounts.
“We’re delighted to be working with five leading banks in India: ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, the State Bank of India, and Jio Payments Bank. People can send money on WhatsApp to anyone using a UPI-supported app,” Facebook said in a statement.
This new development comes after Facebook invested $5.7 billion into Indian conglomerate, Reliance Industries, owner of the digital platform, Jio.
It was reported that the two companies were in talks to build a super app much like China’s WeChat.
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