Widely popular messaging giant WhatsApp is also said to be looking to follow the lead and cash in on the digitization drive being led by the Indian government. The company is expected to launch a peer-to-peer (P2P) payments service on its messaging platform in India in the coming six odd months. The service will most likely be powered by the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), reports subscription-based Indian publication The Ken.
WhatsApp is said to be following Truecaller’s lead, who recently partnered with ICICI Bank to integrate a UPI-based payment system into its dialer app. This development might’ve come as a surprise for y’all but UPI is steadily becoming the norm for completing your payments online. Even Samsung has accepted this fact and brought along support for UPI payments into its Samsung Pay app, which was launched in India just recently.
According to the report, the Facebook-owned messaging giant is most likely planning to board the hype train and integrate UPI into its application. This will enable the 200-million monthly active users (of the total 1.2 billion) of the country to send money right from the chat window. The conclusions are currently being drawn on the basis of a rather exciting job posting on WhatsApp’s career page.
The company is looking to onboard a Digital Transactions Lead, who has expertise in UPI, BHIM, and Aadhaar payments. The said employee should have the experience of leading a team, working on customer support, knowledge of India’s expansive culture, and proficiency in financial services of the Indian market.
Though we haven’t been able to confirm the development as of yet, it completely falls in line with the hints provided by WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton during his visit to India a couple months ago. He acknowledged the ubiquity of the messaging service across the country and said that the company would continue to invest, as well as contribute to India’s vision for digital commerce in the future. He continued to add,
We build every WhatsApp feature to be simple, reliable, and secure, and this vision is in line with what Digital India promises to achieve.
Post demonetization, not only the private players but the center has also been fairly active in promoting transparency in transactions. The government has launched several initiatives ranging from the UPI-based BHIM app and Bharat QR to the upcoming Aadhaar Pay app. Yes, it is now planning to integrate most of the digital services with the ubiquitous identification platform — Aadhaar.
Aadhaar Pay is officially launching on April 14. The payment solution instead of requiring a plastic card or an e-wallet algorithm will function on 12-digit unique identification (UID) number printed on your Aadhaar Card. Starting off with four banks including State Bank of India (SBI), Syndicate Bank, IDFC bank and IndusInd bank, this service will enable you to authenticate transactions via just your thumb impression. Thus, it will enable the government to expand its message of digitization across the country, even to the most remote areas.
