New Delhi: WhatsApp, which has over 400 million users of its messaging service in India, plans to roll out its much-awaited payments service in the country later this year, more than a year after it began testing the offering here.
The Facebook-owned company has been testing its payments service in the country since last year with about a million users, but could not launch full-fledged services as it has been awaiting regulatory approvals. Speaking at an event here on Thursday, WhatsApp Global Head Will Cathcart said the company's vision is to make sending money as easy as sending messages on the platform.
"We built payments based on the UPI standard, partnered with banks here in India... We believe that if we did this right, it will accelerate financial inclusion and bring more people in India's fast-growing digital economy. We can't wait to provide the service to more of our users all across India later this year," he said. Cathcart, however, did not clarify whether the company has received a go-ahead from the regulator and policy makers on the planned launch.
WhatsApp's service, which would compete against the likes of Paytm, PhonePe and Google Pay, is yet to be rolled out nationally in India. The company, which has over 1.5 billion users globally, is looking at rolling out payments service in other markets as well. WhatsApp's ambitious payment services' blueprint in India has been caught in a bind over concerns around authentication and its data storage practices.