WhatsApp Pay goes LIVE in India; Mark Zuckerberg clarifies 'no fee will be charged'

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Thursday allowed Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp to start its payments service in the country in a "graded" manner. Following NPCI's nod, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that no fee will be charged when sending money via WhatsApp. 

Speaking through a video statement, Zuckerberg said that it will be supported by more than 140 banks. "Now you can send money to your friends and family through WhatsApp as easily as sending a message. There's no fee, and it's supported by more than 140 banks. And because it's WhatsApp, it's secure and private too," he said.

'All you need is a debit card'

He further said that the payments will be available in 10 Indian regional language versions of WhatsApp. "All you need is a debit card with a bank that supports UPI and you can set it up straight away. You can find it in the latest version of WhatsApp," he said.

"We've been working on this with the National Payments Corporation of India, who oversee everything to make sure it's secure and reliable. And we've built it using India's Unified Payments Interface, which makes it easy for anyone to instantly accept payments across different apps -- and for companies to provide people with great services," he added.

"When people can access financial tools, they're more empowered to support themselves and others or start a business. Long term, we need more innovation that gives people control over their money, and making payments easier is a small step that can really help," he said while adding that India is the first country to do anything like this.\

NPCI allows WhatsApp to offer payment services

On Thursday, the announcement by NPCI came minutes after it limited a single third party like WhatsApp or its rivals like Google Pay or Walmart's PhonePe to handle only 30% of overall UPI transaction volumes by putting a cap. Having a cap on the transaction volume will help in de-risking the entire set-up and is essential as UPI, which surpassed two billion transactions a month mark in October, grows further, NPCI said in a statement.

READ | NPCI gives approval for WhatsApp to ‘Go Live’ on UPI in a graded manner

READ | WhatsApp delivers over 100 billion messages daily, says Mark Zuckerberg

The industry has been feeling that allowing WhatsApp into payments may drive up volumes in the Indian digital payments space. In China, Wechat alone has over 1 billion active users for its payment services.

WhatsApp has 400 million users in India while other Third Party App Providers (TPAPs) -- Google Pay had 75 million and PhonePe had 60 million -- as of May. WhatsApp has been running a pilot service for the last two years but was not given a formal go-ahead because of data localisation requirements.

"NPCI has given approval for Whatsapp to 'Go Live' on UPI in the multi-bank model. WhatsApp can expand its UPI user base in a graded manner starting with a maximum registered user base of twenty (20) million in UPI," the statement said.

READ | WhatsApp to roll out 'vacation mode' allowing users to ignore archive chats

READ | WhatsApp confirms its upcoming 'disappearing messages' feature; rollout expected soon

(With PTI inputs)