Whatsapp Pay has been legally clamped down from being rolled out to the entirety of the Indian public for two years now, due to concerns over its data sharing policy. Things however, could soon change. An Economic Times report, citing a statement from Whatsapp to India’s digital payments regulator NPCI, suggests that Whatsapp has agreed to complied with required guidelines.
According to its statement to the NCPI, the Facebook-owned messaging app has now announced its compliance with local rules mandated by the payment regulator for payment companies by next month.
For those in the unknown, Whatsapp Pay is an in-chat payment feature that allows users of worl’ds most used IM platform, to make transactions with their contact list. The UPI-based payment service allows users to send and receive money. However, concerns were quick to be raised against the feature due to its data sharing policy, particularly the sharing of user data with its parent company Facebook.
Based on these contentions, the wide availability of the feature has faced a chronology of regulatory hurdles. Back in November, RBI directed NPCI to disallow the rolling out of the feature based on its non-compliance of data localisation norms which are instrumental in the protection of user data. This is especially crucial due to Whatsapp being owned by a Foreign company, namely Facebook.
In February, after almost two years of its experimental run, the NPCI had given a green light to put Whatsapp Pay into operation in a phased manner. However, a plan to increase the number of users from 1 million to 10 million never took off. A think tank filed an application before the Supreme court seeking to stop the planned expansion of user base. The application was based on the widely agreed upon noncompliance of Whatsapp with the set forth norms.
“It was decided to allow Whatsapp Pay for a partial rollout, but permission was not granted. NPCI wanted to play it safe since a court case is still on and it wants to give the approval only after Whatsapp has met all the criteria and the court’s permission” said an official, according to the Economic Times report.
After repeated allegations, Whatsapp will now adhere to the set forth norms by May. “We are continuing to work with the government so that we can provide access to payments on Whatsapp to all of our users” said a Whatsapp spokesperson. The Facebook owned messaging app also highlighted that the feature will help accelerate digital payments and is a safer way of transaction for the Indian populace under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
