WhatsApp has over 200 million active users in India. (Carl Court via Getty Images)After several months in development, WhatsApp has finally launched in-app payments via UPI in India.
The payments option is embedded within the attachments menu in the chat. Clicking the payment option leads to phone number verification via an SMS and then detects the bank accounts linked with that number.
Once the bank account is linked to the application, payments are processed via government’s UPI route. As of now, users can only send money via the app. Both the sender and receiver need to have payments enabled in their respective apps.
The option has been enabled for beta-testers of the application in the country, which means that it’ll soon be rolled out for other users as well.
India is WhatApp’s biggest market, with more than 200 million active users, and has among the highest penetration among messenger applications in India. Hike messenger had also integrated payments into its chat earlier.
Given WhatsApp’s reach, the move bodes well for the future of digital payments in India, which the government has been aggressively pushing since it came to power.
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