WhatsApp to offer credit, pension, and Insurance services to Indian users

Popular messaging platform WhatsApp is directing its focus on providing credit, insurance, and pension services to people belonging to the lower-income class in the rural areas in India. The effort aims to digitalize the local SMBs and strengthen India’s financial inclusion. The Facebook-owned company has already joined hands with some of the major financial institutions in the country such as ICICI Bank, HDFC and Kotak Mahindra, and is looking for ways to introduce the financial services to the Indian users.

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Indian banks reach over three million users with WhatsApp Banking

Abhijit Bose, WhatsApp’s head in India, recently announced at the Global Fintech Fest conference that ICICI and Kotak Mahindra were successful in reaching more than three million new Indian users.

Now, the company is looking to partner with more such financial institutions to expand its banking services and offer credit, micro-pension, and insurance services to people belonging to the lower-income segments and those part of the unorganised sector. The company aims to execute this plan over the next two to three years.

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Abhijit also added that their main goal with the project is to bring financial services to the people, rather than extending payments. WhatsApp will run a number of pilot projects with several financial institutions in the country to test out the services that could be offered to the users. Bose also revealed that they have planned to launch a number of experiments, where the company will co-invest and scale the operations based on results.

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Facebook entered India’s digital payments when it first launched WhatsApp Pay in 2018. The service was rolled out to only a small percentage of users in India, however, the service was never extended to other users in the country after the project got stuck in some data compliance and regulatory problems. However, the company later announced that the feature was in compliance with all the necessary requirements by New Delhi’s central bank, meaning that the project could get the necessary approval for wider adoption. One of the first banks to launch this banking service in India was Kotak Mahindra where it was able to serve around 20 lakh customers on the WhatsApp Banking channel.

Facebook had also invested $5.7 billion in India's popular mobile internet service Jio Platforms earlier this year to become the largest minority shareholder in the internet service. The company described the investment as a means to explore new ways to serve small businesses along with Reliance.

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Image credits: WhatsApp