WhatsApp users in India will now be able to send money through the popular messaging app as the service received approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to go live on Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in the multi-bank model.
The approval comes after two years of testing.
“We’ve been working on this with the National Payments Corporation of India, who oversee everything to make sure it’s secure and reliable. And we’ve built it using India’s Unified Payments Interface, which makes it easy for anyone to instantly accept payments across different apps -- and for companies to provide people with great services,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.
However, the payment service will only be rolled out to 20 million WhatsApp users and the messaging app has over 400 million users in India. That’s because NPCI has said that a 30 percent cap will be implemented on total payment volumes via every third party payments app from January 1, 2021.
WhatsApp payments: How to setup your account
Step 1: Open the WhatsApp app on your phone and tap on the three-dotted icon, which is placed on the top right corner of the screen.
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Step 2: Tap on Payments > Add payment method. You will get a list of bank names.
Step 3: After selecting the name of the bank, your number (linked with the bank) will be verified. For this, you need to tap on Verify via SMS. Make sure the WhatsApp number is the same as the one linked to your bank account.
Step 4: Once the verification process is completed, you can then need to finish setting up payments. You will need to set a UPI pin for carrying out transactions similar to how it is on other apps. After this, you will be able to see the chosen bank on the payments page.
WhatsApp Pay: How to send or receive money
Step 1: Open the chat of the person on WhatsApp and go to the attachment icon.
Step 2: Tap on Payment and add the amount you want to send to the individual. One can also add a note.
Step 3: To complete the WhatsApp payment process, you need to enter your UPI PIN. once the transaction is completed, you will get a confirmation message.