WhatsApp is rolling out a new feature in India that will allow users in its largest market to pay businesses using a variety of payment options from within the instant messaging app.
The Meta-owned app on Wednesday said it has partnered with Bengaluru-based PayU and Razorpay to add support for payments across credit and debit cards, online banking and all UPI apps in India.
Wednesday’s move follows WhatsApp’s partnership with Stripe earlier this year to help its users in Singapore pay businesses through the app. The app also made payments available to merchants in Brazil in June.
“This will make it easier for people to pay Indian companies within a WhatsApp chat using any method they prefer,” Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, said in his virtual remarks at the company’s Conversations 2023 event in Mumbai.
WhatsApp confirmed to TechCrunch that the payment feature is available to all businesses in India using the WhatsApp Business platform.
With over 500 million users in India online on WhatsApp, the South Asian market is the largest globally for Meta. The app first introduced its payment services – built on top of the UPI interface – in India in 2020 in a trial that was expanded to include 100 million users last year. However, it still faces an uphill battle from the likes of Google Pay, Walmart-owned PhonePe and Indian fintech giant Paytm which dominates the UPI ecosystem.
Indian businesses using WhatsApp can receive payments from customers who previously used UPI-based WhatsApp Pay. Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries used this support to offer a one-stop shopping experience on WhatsApp through its JioMart program last year. However, the latest update streamlines the customer experience by providing third-party payment options for merchants who sell products through the app.
It also expands the scope for both customers and businesses to use WhatsApp as a business solution. However, the messaging app, which has over 200 million monthly active users worldwide on its business app, is yet to see a significant number of its regular users making purchases through its platform in India.
WhatsApp Business has been an important source of revenue for WhatsApp, which does not charge users directly through subscriptions and has no plans to display ads.
Earlier this year, the app introduced paid features for automation and personalized merchant messaging. Improved payment support could increase revenue as more users shop via WhatsApp, attracting more businesses. WhatsApp is also getting a richer in-app shopping experience with a feature called Flows, which will allow users to complete tasks like choosing a seat on a flight or booking an appointment directly from the messaging app.