Facebook said WhatsApp has started supporting money transfers in India. A new WhatsApp feature lets people 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.
The company designed its payments feature on WhatsApp in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) using the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), a local real-time payment system that enables over 2 billion transactions a month. Its supported by 160 banks and several other mobile money systems. The NPCI confirmed it had cleared WhatsApp to go live with its service, up to an initial 20 million users.
To send money on WhatsApp in India, end-users need to have a bank account and debit card in India. WhatsApp sends instructions to banks, also known as payment service providers, that initiate the transfer of money via UPI between sender and receiver bank accounts. Facebook is working with five local banks: 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.
The payments feature in WhatsApp is designed with a strong set of security and privacy principles, including entering a personal UPI PIN for each payment, Facebook said. Payments on WhatsApp is now available for people on the latest version of the iPhone and Android app.
WhatsApp first started testing mobile payments in India in 2018, and the company tried to introduce a similar service in Brazil earlier this year. The introduction of payment services is expected to support Facebook's efforts to monetise WhatsApp as well as add to the growing number of business services offered over the messaging app.
