WhatsApp, the communication application owned by social media giant Facebook, is set to debut its digital payments service in India, to subsequently be expanded to other markets. The company is looking to hire a digital transactions head in the country.

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Instant Messaging Services Foray Into Digital
Payments In India
WhatsApp, the communication application owned by social media giant Facebook, is set to
debut its digital payments service in India, to subsequently be expanded to other markets. The
company is looking to hire a digital transactions head in the country.
#DigitalErra Thought Corner
WhatsApp is expected to take part in Unified Payments Service project of government which
enables money to be transferred between different mobile money services as well as bank
accounts. It is discussing ways in which it could contribute to India’s vision for digital
commerce.
“We listen very carefully to feedback from people across India and how to better serve them.
India is obviously our largest country and it’s going to be one of the most important markets,”
WhatsApp spokesperson Matt Steinfeld told reporters on Wednesday. The new service will be a
part of the app itself.

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(Source: business-standard)
WhatsApp does not intend to introduce any third-party advertisements, it is looking at ways to
monetize the platform, and working with business could be a step in that direction.
“We are definitely into building the product phase. So, what you will see over the year is
different tests, both for small and large businesses, and figuring what’s good experience for these
on WhatsApp,” Steinfeld said. “India is going to play a crucial role in that.”
Ride In Digital Payments
Any payments service would be Facebook’s first attempt to offer mobile payment services on
WhatsApp, which it acquired for $21.8bn in 2014. The company started offering peer-to-peer
payment support on Facebook Messenger in 2015, and registered in October to provide
electronic payment services across the Europe. India has more WhatsApp users than any other
country — at 160 million in November — slightly ahead of Facebook’s own tally in the country.
Of late, WhatsApp has been working on features to enhance engagement on the platform. It
recently launched a story feature to allow users to express their thoughts using pictures and
animations.
Sharad Sharma, co-founder of iSPIRT, said the platform would enable WhatsApp to offer a
simple interface rather than developing a full-fledged payments system of its own. “They are not
themselves in the payments business,” he said. “It’s an additional convenience that they are
offering to people.
WhatsApp’s financial ambitions could pose a threat to digital payments major PayTM, in which
the Chinese technology giant Alibaba has pumped more than $680 million. PayTM said in
February that it had amassed 200 million users, making it the largest of the prepaid “digital
wallet” companies that have enjoyed a surge in usage amid the cash shortages that followed the
November demonetisation.

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Hike To Roll Out UPI Enabled Payments
As WhatsApp is busy on its end, the news is India’s Hike Messenger is also working on bringing
the UPI-based digital payments service to the application.
Hike claimed that the company is looking to enter the digital payments system allowing users to
make payments or purchase apps right from the application itself. This model will work same as
the WhatsApp’s business model because both the instant messaging platforms will use the
Unified Payments Interface (UPI) to make the transactions.
Hike Messenger has recently raised funding of $179 million from the group of Foxconn and
Tencent.
Besides, Truecaller, the pioneer in the caller ID service has too partnered with ICICI Bank and
integrated the UPI-based payments service with which users can send and receive money from
other users.
India is on a huge digital payments boom. There were 262 million transactions worth $1.3bn
using digital wallets in January, according to the Reserve Bank of India, up from 100 million in
October and 49 million in January 2016. WhatsApp couldn’t have asked for a better time to roll
out digital payments services in India.