Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed that WhatsApp payments will soon be launched in India. The feature has been successfully tested but data and other regulatory compliances have delayed the launch so far.
“We have our test going in India. The test really shows that a lot of people would want to use this product. We’re very optimistic about launching it in India soon, but of course will share more news when we have that,” Zuckerberg told analysts on Wednesday.
The WhatsApp Pay service will be a peer-to-peer, UPI-based service that has the potential to reach over 400 million users in India.
Due to RBI’s data localization requirement, WhatsApp had earlier said it had built a local system to store payments-related data.
“We differentiate between payment systems that are built on top of the existing financial infrastructure like what we’re trying to do with WhatsApp payments or when we make payments in Instagram Shopping, and our work with something like Libra that is trying to build some new technological infrastructure for financial services,” Zuckerberg elaborated.
