The National Payments Corporation of India, the payments body that oversees the widely popular UPI instrument, has given approval to WhatsApp to extend its payments service to 100 million users in the South Asian market, a person familiar with the matter said. In the world's second largest internet market, 40 million users have been allowed to useWhatsApp Pay.
The Meta-owned service has struggled to expand its offering to a larger base in India because of confusing regulatory pushback, despite initially rolling out its payments service in India in 2020. A person familiar with the matter said that no other company has had to comply with the same order as the NPCI, which insisted that the payments service be rolled out in step-by-step phases.
The payments service has been approved by the NPCI and will be rolled out to an additional 60 million users. India is the largest market by users for the messaging service.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has approved an additional sixty million users for UPI. The service will be expanded to 100 million users with this approval.
The company's payments rivals have been able to gain market share in India because of the slow roll out of WhatsApp Pay. According to official figures published by the NPCI, PhonePe and Google Pay own over 70% of the UPI market share. In a statement on Wednesday, PhonePe said it processed 100 million in a single day.
UPI has emerged as the most popular digital payments method in India in recent years, thanks in part to New Delhi's move to invalidate more than 85% of the paper cash circulation in the nation in late 2016 UPI's popularity has diminished the utility of several firms in India.
Mobile wallet are not compatible with other mobile wallet and charge a small fee to consumers. There is no fee on the UPI network, a fact that has been suggested by some industry players.
India has created something truly special with UPI and is opening up a world of opportunities for micro and small businesses that are the backbone of the Indian economy. India is the first country to do this. We were able to support this effort and work together to achieve a more digital India. I would like to thank our partners who made this possible. When people have access to financial tools, they can start a business or support themselves. In the long term, we need more innovation that gives people control over their money, and making payments easier is a small step that can really help.
In India, the messaging service started working on a payments service. The pilot and test payments roll out in India in early 2018 caused a regulatory maze as various bodies in the country expressed concerns over users' data and whether the Facebook-owned service wielded too much power and advantages over other payments apps.
The Wednesday announcement comes at a time when NPCI is looking to enforce a rule that would ensure that no single payments app processes more than 30% of all UPI transactions in a month.
Several more industry players are exploring opportunities in the mobile payments space because of this requirement. The UPI-enabled payments service is included in the super app. The UPI payments service will be launched by the Bengaluru-headquartered Slice within weeks.
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