WhatsApp Payments to soon roll-out in India after RBI's green signal

Full-fledged WhatsApp payments could soon see daylight in India after having met the compliance with data localisation norms set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In November 2019, the RBI had told Supreme Court about the non-compliance and directed the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to not allow WhatsApp to launch full-scale payment business on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

Now the central bank has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court, saying NPCI is satisfied with the compliance and data storage rules. ICICI Bank is the payment service provider bank for WhatsApp and RBI has given green signal to the bank to go live. A WhatsApp spokesperson reportedly said that NPCI is satisfied with company’s compliance with RBI’s payments guidelines and the messaging app is ready to provide payment service to Indian users.

It is currently offering its payment service to a limited number of users on a trial basis and the nod by RBI has cleared the way for a full-fledged roll-out. WhatsApp currently boasts of over 400 million users in India and is sent to enter the online payment system already crowded with PayTM, Google Pay, PhonePe, and Amazon Pay. Google Pay dominates the UPI-based payments market with over 42 per cent share but WhatsApp’s massive user base could help the messaging firm get to the top.

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Conversational commerce

Meanwhile, Facebook has also devised a plan to start conversational commerce on WhatsApp, targeting around 400 million active user base. In conversational commerce, people and businesses connect through chat with an intention to purchase goods or services. In India, Facebook is planning to push for financial inclusion and rural services but healthcare services will be excluded from it.

Facebook has already published a whitepaper on conversational commerce with the help of Boston Consulting Group (BCG). As live chats for services have failed to receive encouraging feedback, Facebook, through its extensive resource at its disposal, can provide a new lease of life to it using conversational commerce.

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(Image: PTI)