{"id":248167,"date":"2018-05-30T07:27:58","date_gmt":"2018-05-30T05:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=248167"},"modified":"2018-05-30T07:27:58","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T05:27:58","slug":"whatsapp-to-push-whatsapp-pay-in-its-biggest-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/248167\/whatsapp-to-push-whatsapp-pay-in-its-biggest-market\/","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp to push WhatsApp Pay in its biggest market"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Facebook is set to offer its WhatsApp payment services to the whole of India as early as next week in an attempt to win market share, even though its partners aren\u2019t all ready, said people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n

The messaging app will partner HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank Ltd and Axis Bank Ltd to process the transfers, and State Bank of India will join once it has the necessary systems in place, the people said.<\/p>\n

Facebook was aiming for a full rollout with four partners but decided to go ahead with just three as its rivals were racing ahead, the people said, asking not to be named as the information isn\u2019t public.<\/p>\n

The entry of Whatsapp into India\u2019s payments space has been likened to WeChat, which reshaped payments in China when it expanded beyond messaging.<\/p>\n

The pilot version of WhatsApp Pay – started with 1 million users in February – received rave reviews, threatening the market share of incumbents Google Tez and Alibaba-backed Paytm, which lack the benefits of a social network.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatsApp has a great starting point: a monopoly in chat,\u201d said Vivek Belgavi, leader for financial technology at PwC India.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh engagement makes it a credible competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 200 million Indians already use WhatsApp messaging, equivalent to 60 percent of the U.S. population and a daily active usage that Forrester Inc. estimates to be about 20 times higher than Paytm\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u2018Walled Garden\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

A representative for WhatsApp said the company doesn\u2019t comment on speculation. ICICI Bank couldn\u2019t immediately comment and emails to State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and Axis Bank weren\u2019t answered.<\/p>\n

One of the most outspoken critics of WhatsApp Pay has been Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of Paytm Payments Bank Pvt.<\/p>\n

His startup has been one of the biggest winners from the Indian government\u2019s clampdown on cash and Sharma fired off a barrage of angry tweets in February, claiming that WhatsApp had bypassed security requirements and that Facebook was trying to create a walled payments garden.<\/p>\n

National Payments Corp. of India, the umbrella body that oversees retail payments and settlement systems in Asia\u2019s No.3 economy, has no concerns about data security on the payment services offered by WhatsApp, Dilip Asbe, chief executive officer of NPCI, said in Mumbai on May 9.<\/p>\n

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Read: Why Cash Converters is using WhatsApp to talk to indebted customers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Facebook is set to offer its WhatsApp payment services to the whole of India as early as next week in an attempt to win market share, even though its partners aren\u2019t all ready, said people familiar with the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":245533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2118],"class_list":["post-248167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248179,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248167\/revisions\/248179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}