WhatsApp to roll out payments in India

WhatsApp Global Head Will Cathcart on Thursday said the company could roll out its payments service to users across India later this year.

The messaging app, which has about 400 million users inIndia, has been testing its payments in the country since last year with abouta million users. Cathcart said the company’s vision is to make sending money aseasy as sending a message on the platform.

   

“We believe that if we get this right, it willaccelerate financial inclusion and bring value for people in India’s fastgrowing digital economy, We can’t wait to provide the service more of our usersall across India later this year,” he said at an event here. WhatsApp’sservice, which would compete against the likes of Paytm, PhonePe and GooglePay, is yet to be rolled out nationally in India.

The Facebook-owned company, which has over 1.5 billion usersglobally, is looking rolling out its payments service in other markets as well.

WhatsApp’s ambitious payment services’ blueprint in Indiahas been caught in a bind over concerns around authentication and its datastorage practices. In the past, its home grown rivals have alleged thatWhatsApp’s payment platform has security risks for consumers and is not incompliance with the guidelines.In October last year, WhatsApp had said it hasdeveloped a system to store payments-related data in India as part ofcompliance with the Reserve Bank of India’s policy on storing such datalocally. In May this year, the messaging app had told the Supreme Court thatits trial run is likely to be completed by July, and that it will not launchpayments services without fully complying with the central bank norms.

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