WhatsApp Pay - new chapter in India’s digital payments journey

Social media giant Facebook plans to create an online payment system in India that will operate via WhatsApp messaging application, Report says citing foreign press.

The company has made a significant bet on India by investing $5.7 billion into Jio Platforms, the tech subsidiary of multinational conglomerate Reliance Industries. Jio variously operates broadband, mobile services, and online commerce platforms, and Facebook's investment gives it around a 10 percent stake in the company, making it the largest minority shareholder.

Notably, Amazon's Pantry, Walmart's Flipkart backed by Chinese Alibaba, and BigBasket are operating in the Indian virtual market at present.

WhatsApp’s payment feature, called WhatsApp Pay, is designed to run on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) — developed by the National Payments Corporation of India — which allows users to pay others or do business transactions through their bank accounts. Its license has not been approved in India yet as it has to complete localizing all the data within the country’s borders. WhatsApp has about 400 million users in India.