Increasing market share of whatsapp in fintech industry

Abstract

WhatsApp Pay is an in-chat payment feature that allows you to make UPI! based payment transactions to your contact list through the App. It was developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and is an India-first real -time payments system that enables transactions with over 227 banks.* WhatsApp Pay was launched as a pilot with the ICICI bank partnership in India and introduced to a million users in 2018. In 2020, it received approval from NPCI to roll the feature in a phased manner and in the first phase, 10 million users were offered the service. It allows users to send money to their contacts after which it enables UPI ID for the users. After that, the user can make the transactions with the UPI ID or through QR scan code for the audience that are not present in their contact list.’ WhatsApp pay has also recently added payments background to bring excitement *to everyday payments through WhatsApp for the users to express themselves through the range of feelings ranging from celebrations, affection, and warmth to fun to complement sending payments on birthdays, holidays, or for gifts and travel. To increase the enhanced user adoption in India by improving the ease of use, it has announced that it will introduce the India rupee (®) symbol in the chat box as a visual indicator for making payments easier which is a slight change from the current solution that takes two steps to initiate the payment’. It has also announced to start rewarding the users with cashback for using the WhatsApp payments and is testing the features for the users in India. WhatsApp for business enables small businesses to have their own verified profile where they can chat with the customers and promote their products. This feature is used by online marketplaces too for sending delivery updates and tickets. It has become a whole new sales and marketing channel for small businesses and with an option of WhatsApp pay, the customer can buy things from these small businesses and pay them instantly.