Now, users of Facebook-owned WhatsApp would be able to pay from the instant messaging platform as the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) gave its permission to launch its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) -based payment system.
The instant messaging platform has been testing the payment method for two years, but there were some questions regarding privacy. Though NPCI gave its approval, the final clearance would be given by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), only after which WhatsApp would be allowed to roll-out the UPI-payment service.
However, with the approval, there are some riders also for WhatsApp, as NPCI also issued a directive asking third-party UPI providers to cap the amount of transaction on any platform at 30 per cent of the total volume of transactions processed in UPI, effective January 1, 2021.Payment models allowed in phase-wise
WhatsApp has been given permission to rollout the payment service in a phase-wise manner. That is, it will be made to live in many different phases. Initially, the company has been allowed to have a 20million UPI user base, but later it’ll be expanded.
Tough competition ahead for PayTM, Google Pay
Experts believe that with WhatsApp starting its UPI-payment service tough, Paytm, Google Pay and phone Pay will get a tough competition in the digital payment market now. Currently, there are more than 45 third party apps offering UPI based payments services including Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Flipkart and Phone Pay. Apart from this, 140 banks like Paytm Payments Bank, Airtel Payments Bank and Axis Bank also offer these services.
Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma has been consistently opposing WhatsApp. They say that this service isn’t safe for the user and there’s a risk of fraud. India is the largest market for WhatsApp. WhatsApp has quite 400 million active users in India.
