The National Payments Corporation of India or NPCI on Wednesday approved an additional 60 million users on UPI for Meta Platforms Inc’s WhatsApp. With this, WhatsApp will be able to increase its payment service to 100 million users in India.
WhatsApp has told NPCI over the years that there should be no limit on users of its payment service in India, which is its largest market.
Instead, NPCI told the firm today that it may increase the number of users from 40 million currently to 100 million.
While the relaxation will come as a relief, the new limit may still limit WhatsApp’s growth prospects, as it has over 500 million users in India.
WhatsApp has told NPCI several times that it wants to operate “without limitation”, but privately, NPCI’s idea is to allow all its users to use the payment service – integrated with the app and adding contacts. Allowing each other to send money – may put pressure on the country’s financial infrastructure, one of the sources said.
NPCI approved WhatsApp to launch payments service in 2020 after the company spent years trying to comply with Indian regulations, including data storage norms that require all payment-related data to be stored locally. Is.
It started with 20 million users and in November last year, the cap was raised to 40 million.
WhatsApp competes with Alphabet Inc’s Google Pay, SoftBank- and Ant Group-backed Paytm and Walmart’s PhonePe in India’s congested digital market.
Online transactions, lending and e-wallet services are growing rapidly in India, led by the government to drive the country’s cash-savvy merchants and consumers to adopt digital payments.
with agency input