WhatsApp Payment Service Likely to Be Offered to All Users in India Next Week - Report
Facebook-owned, WhatsApp will be introducing its UPI-based payment service to the whole of India by the first week of June 2018.
WhatsApp, one of the most used applications for instant messaging has over 1.5 billion users active on the platform. Facebook-owned WhatsApp currently is planning to introduce its payment service to all Indian users by the next week. The payment service will allow users to send and receive money from their contact list. This new step towards online payment service will transform WhatsApp as a mobile payment app that will gain market share and also compete with Google’s Tez and Paytm.
WhatsApp payment service was initially started in February 2018 where the service was not accessible to all users but has confirmed to be launching by the first week of June. The messaging application is reported that it will partner with ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank to process the transferred funds. While there are reports stating, State Bank of India to join them later in the partnership list. WhatsApp which will integrate a UPI-based payment service is not the first to introduce online payments in a messaging application, while WeChat a Chinese multi-purpose messaging application developed by Tencent announced its payment service in 2012 and India based messaging platform Hike last year adopted the UPI-based payment service.
According to Forrester an American market research company that provides data on the current and potential impact of technology to private clients and the public, states that WhatsApp has more than 200 million Indian users which are equivalent to 60 percent of the US population, which is about 20 times higher than on Paytm.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 30, 2018 05:15 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).