WhatsApp, one of the leading texting and social media applications in the world, is gaining market in the online payments space as well. The Meta owned messaging platform can now add up to 40 million users for its payments service. The development was first reported by PTI, which said the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has allowed WhatsApp to double its user base for online payments service to 40 million from 20 million. This will help the company in competing with other leading online payment applications, including Google Pay and PhonePe.
WhatsApp Can’t Move too Aggressively Because of Regulations
To keep the competition fair in the Indian market, the government ensures that there are regulations in place. The NPCI looks over delivering a fair playground to applications and companies in the online payments space.
According to Statista, WhatsApp had over 487.5 million users in India in June 2021, making the country the biggest marketplace for social media applications. If WhatsApp had permission to allow all of its users to make online payments in India, it might have crushed Google Pay, PhonePe, Amazon Pay, and other applications in the market.
To ensure that there is always fair play and no monopoly in the online payments space, NPCI only allows companies a certain percentage of the market share to play with. WhatsApp had earlier announced that it was offering cashbacks of Rs 51 on the first five transactions to the users. This would have meant a cashback of up to Rs 255, which is not a bad incentive to give users the taste of convenience that they can get using WhatsApp for making online payments.
WhatsApp Payments is still an alien feature to many people in the country. There are users who are worried about using the application for making payments because of privacy concerns that WhatsApp has. It will still take time for WhatsApp to strengthen its position as a leading online payments platform in India.
