The Facebook-owned popular messaging application WhatsApp is pumped up to launch its first ever payment service across India making it the first country to support in-app payments. This feature is reported to be introduced as early as next week with an aim to achieve market shares.
The payment feature will enable the country’s population to make payments to anyone on their WhatsApp contact list, as well as receive money through the app. Some of the largest banks in the country – HDFC Bank Ltd., ICICI Bank Ltd. and Axis Bank Ltd. have partnered with the messaging app to make this service available to the people. Also, it is being said that the State Bank of India will join once the necessary systems are in place. It is being informed that the social media giant Facebook was seeking to inaugurate this all-new service with four partners but decided to move forward with just three due to competitive pressure.
Vivek Belgavi, leader for financial technology at PwC India said, “WhatsApp has a great starting point: a monopoly in chat. High engagement makes it a credible competition.”
The introduction of the in-app payment feature on Whatsapp in India is closely being compared to WeChat, which expanded beyond messaging and started its in-app payment feature in China. The pilot version of WhatsApp Pay received highly favorable reviews, giving threat to the market share other famous payment apps like Google Tez and Paytm, which lack the advantages of a social network.
More than any other messaging app in the market, WhatsApp is the most popular one in India, with over 200 million users. Nowadays, many people are also getting involved in business through WhatsApp messenger where they sell products by sharing pictures of the same and therefore, the initiation of the payment feature may give it a boost too. India is experiencing a boom in the mobile payment apps at the moment and the messaging giant is all set to give a tough competition to the other popular payment apps currently prevailing in the market.