Whatsapp Pay in India

WhatsApp has partnered with five Indian banks for the UPI payments service in India
People can send money on WhatsApp to anyone using a UPI supported app, WhatsApp said in a blog post

With over 400 million users, WhatsApp has received the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) approval to ‘Go Live’ on UPI in a graded manner.

However, the UPI payments service will reportedly be rolled out to 2 crore WhatsApp users initially while the Facebook-owned messaging app has more than 40 crore users in the country.

This is because the NPCI has stated that a 30% cap will be implemented on total payment volumes via every third party payments app from 1 January next year.

In a video statement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that ‘payments service’ is now available in 10 Indian regional language versions of WhatsApp.

5 banks WhatsApp has partnered with

WhatsApp also said that it has partnered with five Indian banks — ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, the State Bank of India, and Jio Payments Bank —for the service.

“We’re delighted to be working with five leading banks in India: ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, the State Bank of India, and Jio Payments Bank. People can send money on WhatsApp to anyone using a UPI supported app,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.

The messaging app added: “Money is directly transferred between bank accounts. The payments feature on WhatsApp is powered by BHIM UPI and processed by payment partners in India.”

WhatsApp has also said that to send or receive money in India, it’s necessary to have a bank account and debit card in the country. “WhatsApp sends instructions to banks, also known as payment service providers, that initiate the transfer of money via UPI between sender and receiver bank accounts,” it said.

Also, WhatsApp works on UPI, the same system that other payments service — Google Pay, Phone Pay, BHIM use. So one doesn’t have to hold any amount in a Whatsapp ‘wallet’.

The money will be in your bank account and the messaging app will help you transfer the amount to other people and vice versa.

A user will also have to enter a personal UPI PIN for each transaction while using WhatsApp for payments.