As per news reports, the world’s largest social platform WhatsApp is planning to launch peer to peer payment services in India, much likely to be powered by the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

The Ken, in its published story, says that WhatsApp, which has no team stationed in India, is looking to hire a Digital Transactions Lead to look after its digital transaction initiative in India.

WhatsApp, with over 1.2 billion users globally, announced in February that its India base is 200 million strong, and such an announcement by the world’s largest messenger service – that of a payment system integrated in its App, could well open new use cases.

The reports further go on to say, that the company had earlier considered Digital Wallets as a payments system. However, going with the guidelines announced by RBI earlier in March, WhatsApp is looking to go adopt UPI for its payments system.

India’s PayTM, again with 200 million users has adopted the digital walllet method, but RBI guidelines have raised apprehensions about the industry’s future potential.  RBI has proposed interoperability – where wallets can interact with each other, other related regulations could end up choking the  sector.

RBI’s new guidelines have raised the minimum capital requirements for wallet providers to Rs. 25 Crore, which is 5 times the previous requirement.  The regulator has also mandated complete compliance with Know-Your-Customer norms an has introduced limitations on domestic remittances.  The automatic closure of mobile wallets with zero balance is another contentious proposal that could affect the number of users for each such provider.

Accordingly, WhatsApp approach seems logical since UPI has the backing of all major banks.  Further, WhatsApp, in its job post, has said that the candidates for Digital Transactions Lead should understand UPI and have the ability to explain BHIM and Aadhaar.

Source: Media Reports