This was bound to happen. It was just a matter of when and which country will it start with.
It has just been revealed that Whatsapp is entering into the digital payments space. And it is starting with India.
With Whatsapp being the most popular instant messaging app in India and having 200 million users out of over one billion globally, this is the next anticipated move – payments. And the harvest is ripe for the picking.
According to a report on the Ken, the Facebook-owned messaging app is working quietly to launch person-to-person payments on its platform within the next six months. It reports that the company has picked UPI as the mechanism for payments. Mashable reports that Whatsapp is in talks with the government to add support for UPI, a new payment system by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
Whatsapp has already put out a job vacancy for a digital transactions lead position with the ability to understand and explain UPI, BHIM, Aadhar number.
According to Mashable, WhatsApp spokesperson didn’t deny the claims, but said, “India is an important country for WhatsApp, and we’re understanding how we can contribute more to the vision of Digital India.”
“We’re exploring how we might work with companies that share this vision and continuing to listen closely to feedback from our users.”
Just last week, Swedish communications app Truecaller, announced its tie-in with ICICI bank of India to enable peer-to-peer payments between Truecaller users. This shows that there is a big opportunity in this space in India as CNBC reports that digital transactions in India have surged after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s shock ban of certain high-value bank notes in November that accounted for more than 80 percent of the country’s currency in circulation at the time.
Getting it right in India will usher in a new regime for the company and I am sure it will be willing to extend this to other countries where the app is popular.
Are the other peer-to-peer payment mechanisms like M-pesa, Ecocash, Paga ready for this giant?
I would advise they should have a strategy for this as it will come. It is just a matter of when.
