WhatsApp Pay — Is Facebook here to monopolise the Digital payment space too?
WhatsApp recently launched a bunch of cool roll-outs and one of the major one was WhatsApp Pay.
According to the sources, WhatsApp rolled out WhatsApp Payments to a select user base of one million users in India last February.
They got a nod from India govt after WhatsApp satisfied their data compliance policies which included (information storage within India data centres and other audit-related verifications)a couple of days back. WhatsApp has rolled out WhatsApp Payments in India in partnership with the ICICI bank. The company is likely to add other banks such as the Axis Bank, SBI and the HDFC bank as partners soon.
That means WhatsApp pay is now head-on with top trending payment apps in India such as Amazon Pay, PhonePe and Paytm. However, what is important to note here is that these digital payment gateways are already reaching a saturation point.
I have always been a Beta user and have had this feature for almost a year now, but was always sceptical to test this feature given all the data breach Facebook was accused of a year ago. However, I went ahead and tested this out today and was totally impressed by the ease of it.
Attaching a bunch of screenshots which is like a mini-tutorial, But I am sure we all need no introduction exploring WhatsApp.
What WhatsApp achieved in this single page is often multiple scrolls and click in all the other Digital payment Apps today. They deserve a 10/10 for the UI- achieving all this in one page without cramping the page.
Upon clicking “New Payment” option, it takes to all contact page, where we get to chose who to send the money to, it also greys out those users who currently do not have the latest updated version or if they reside outside the country.
Screens further to this are usual UPI processes but all of this gives in-app experience which again makes the journey very smooth.
Once the transaction is completed, it comes within the chat window too, Hey what better way to keep accountability of the credit transaction ;). Well played WhatsApp.
With an estimated user base of 300 million active users in India would this become the next trending topic in digital payments?
Would you still stick to your existing digital payment gateways until WhatsApp Pay monopolises the payment space and eventually push you to use this feature? Or would you test it out right away? Comment your thoughts below. ;)
