WhatsApp has gone live with its UPI payments offering from Friday.
“Starting today, people across India will be able to send money through WhatsApp,” the messaging service said in a blog post, adding that it would necessary to have a bank account and debit card in India to use the service.
The announcement on Friday, came just after the National Payments Corporation of India allowed WhatsApp to ‘Go Live’ on UPI in the multi-bank model on Thursday night.
For UPI payments, WhatsApp is working with five banks in India: ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, the State Bank of India, and Jio Payments Bank.
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“People can send money on WhatsApp to anyone using a UPI supported app,”it said, adding that the service is now available for people on the latest version of the iPhone and Android app.
It also stressed that payments is designed with a strong set of security and privacy principles, including entering a personal UPI PIN for each payment.
In a video statement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it had been working with the NPCI to make sure the payment service secure and reliable.
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“Payments is available now in ten Indian regional language versions of WhatsApp.” he said.
Under the NPCI approval, WhatsApp can expand its UPI user base in a graded manner starting with a maximum registered user base of two crore in UPI. It had been running pilots of its payment service -WhatsApp Pay for the last two years, but till now it had not received permission to run it on a full scale due to concerns over data localisation.