Facebook, the parent of WhatsApp, today has announced that it's launching Payments on WhatsApp in India.
WhatsApp today received permission from the National Parents Corporation of India (NPCI) to grow its payment feature to a maximum user base of 20 million. The company will make use of India's national real-time payment system called UPI, for inter-bank transactions. The feature has some built-in security and privacy principles for users security.
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To use the service, the user need to have a bank account and debit card in India. WhatsApp will then send the payment instructions to the bank in a secure and private manner, to initiate the transfer of money between the sender and receiver.
This feature is supported by more than 140 banks. However, WhatsApp for now is working with just banks - ICIC Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, The State Bank of India, and Jio Payment Bank.
To use this feature, WhatsApp users will need to update to the latest version to gain access to Payments on both iPhone and Android.