Starting from April 11, 2023, you can now pay a merchant for goods and services on WhatsApp in Brazil. This means that you can search for a business, browse goods and services, add them to your cart, and make a payment all with just a few taps within your WhatsApp platform.
WhatsApp is rolling out this feature today to a small number of businesses and says it will be available to many more in the coming months.
According to WhatsApp in a blog post, “it’s now possible to pay for goods and services using Mastercard and Visa debit, credit and pre-paid cards issued by the numerous banks participating in the service. Small businesses using the WhatsApp Business app can link a supported payment partner – such as Cielo, Mercado Pago or Rede – and create an order within the app to securely accept payments from their customers.”
The Meta-owned messaging service launched a peer to peer payment service in 2020 in Brazil but could not roll out the ability to make purchases through merchants due to regulator restrictions.
In the blog post, WhatsApp reiterated that “just like every feature in WhatsApp, payments are designed to be secure. Card numbers are encrypted and securely stored, and people are required to create a Payment PIN and use it for each payment.”
WhatsApp says it will be bringing it to more types of businesses and countries in the future.
