WhatsApp Pay to Launch in India by May 2020 End [Report]

WhatsApp Pay – WhatsApp’s payment service (beta version) has been running in India since 2018 onward. Now it is reported that WhatsApp Pay is ready to launch in India by this month-end.

Is WhatsApp payment available in India?

At present, the Whatsapp Payment feature is only available to a limited number of people in India. But WhatsApp Pay is ready to launch in India by this May 2020-end.

Whatsapp Payment Latest News

It has been 2 years since Whatsapp Pay that has been available on the beta. Unfortunately due to some roadblocks, WhatsApp Pay – the digital payment service by WhatsApp hasn’t been able to launch officially in India.

According to a report by Money Control, WhatsApp is set to go live with its payment feature in India by the end of May 2020. In the first phase, the Payment method will launch in partnership with three private banks (ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and HDFC Bank). The report also says that the State Bank of India (SBI) will not be available in the initial stage.

A WhatsApp spokesperson told to Moneycontrol “We are continuing to work with the government so that we can provide access to payments on WhatsApp to all of our users. Payments on WhatsApp will help accelerate digital payments and this is particularly important during COVID as it is a safer way to transact for our 400 million users in India.“

In 2018, Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp started beta testing its UPI-based payments service. At present, the Whatsapp Payment feature is only available to a limited number of people in India. Payment Method remained in the beta stage in the past two years due to multiple legal and regulatory hurdles. The report also adds that WhatsApp is complying with the data localisation guidelines released by the Reserve Bank of India in April 2018.

Conclusion:

The instant messaging app, Whatsapp already has over 400 million active users in India. So it is expected to be a huge success in India considering the number of active users. Let us know your thoughts about the latest update regarding the Whatsapp Payment feature in India. Do you think this will be a stiff competition to existing digital wallet companies? Share your though through comments.