After
the long grapple with the Indian government over data localization and payments
data sharing with Facebook, WhatsApp pay has come up with the beta version. In
2014, Mark Zuckerberg bought WhatsApp in $19 billion and since then he has been
trying to think about how to monetize this platform.
For
adding a wallet feature in WhatsApp, Facebook has created the necessary data
storage facilities in India to introduce WhatsApp Pay to the entire Indian user
base, which is estimated to be between 350 million and 400 million users.
Recently,
WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose revealed that “the social messaging company’s focus is to expand digital and
financial inclusion, to help businesses across India”.
According
to Digital Payments (2018 edition), in India, the digital payments industry is
estimated to grow to $1 Tn by 2023. In this growing phase of the digital
payments industry, strong players such as Paytm, PhonePe, and Google Pay, may
cause a freakish rift in the entry of WhatsApp Payments.
Before
discussing anything in deep, let’s talk about WhatsApp Pay.
What is WhatsApp Pay?
WhatsApp
Pay is a seamless money transfer app that works conveniently on Android and iOS
smartphones. Users can leverage the app to send or request money with their
friends.
Facebook
has made London a key hub for the development of this Fintech solution and
roughly around one hundred people hired to lead new WhatsApp payments to push
according to the FT.
Blue Prints of Digital Payment App WhatsApp Pay
The
upcoming feature of WhatsApp i.e. WhatsApp Pay could follow the footprints of
social networking app WeChat Pay. It is most popular China’s money transfer app
with 800 million monthly active users. Initially, WeChat only offers chatting
facility than it used the same platform and converted its existing users to
payments users. WhatsApp will do the same in India with its ingrained user
base. To best leverage its user base, WhatsApp Pay will need its P2P offerings
to attract connecting users just like WeChat as P2P was the main reason behind
the success of WeChat Pay.
Existing Competitors
With
the growing internet stabbing and number of increasing mobile application, many
companies have launched their wallet apps. So for WhatsApp Pay, the competition
level is quite high and all the wallet apps are doing good in the market.
Existing competitors for
WhatsApp Pay are:
·
Google Pay
·
Samsung Pay
·
MobiKwik
·
Paytm
·
FreeCharge
·
PhonePe
·
Ola Money
What are the Indian Government Norms for WhatsApp Pay?
Based
on the Economic Times report “Indian
authorities are concerned that WhatsApp‘s payment service might share user data
with group companies Facebook and Instagram, compromising the security, privacy
and non-commercial information of its subscribers.”
In
last year August, Facebook had to put a project on hold because of data storage
concerns since than WhatsApp has been having a tough time in India for
payments. The Indian government had spelled out some Indian norms that WhatsApp
must adhere to including:
·
Complying with the Reserve Bank of India’s data localization rules
·
Setting up an office in India
·
Appoint a grievance officer and formulate a team in India
After
so many discussions with the India government, Facebook had recently set up its
data storage facilities in India and is reportedly preparing for the full
launch of its UPI payments app in association with ICICI Bank.
WhatsApp
Payments app development team has also partnered with HDFC, and Axis to
launch the payment services.
In
one of the events, the Company stated that “We’re building a new payment feature for India that enables
people to easily send money to each other via WhatsApp”.
Benefits of WhatsApp Payment App:
Here
are some most effective features of WhatsApp Fintech mobile app:
·
It allows users to send and receive payment to anyone on the
WhatsApp contact list from anywhere and at any time.
·
Its ‘Pay’ feature allows users to send funds as simple as sending
a message.
·
The beneficiary will receive a payment notification on their chat
window once the fund transfer has been made.
·
There is no need to enter the IFSC code while transferring
money.
·
User can send money via virtual address.
Limitations
There
are some issues around two-factor authentication during the time of the
transaction. WhatsApp can share data with Facebook in the wake of recent
data breach issues of the social media major with the UK-based political
consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
Summing up
As
the digital payment market is increasing day by day with a rapid pace, we can
assume the WhatsApp’s payments feature would compete with a brimmed market
in India. WhatsApp Pay will successfully attract the WhatsApp users and
will most probably can threaten Paytm’s which is the top player of this industry.
WhatsApp Pay would skyrocket
the digital payment market value and can open the new doors for the financial app development
companies.
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