WhatsApp payment service’s scope increased, now 10 crore users will be able to use the service

WhatsApp’s payment service is now going to expand. Meta-owned instant messaging app WhatsApp has received a new limit to expand the scope of its payment service and strengthen the payment system. The platform has received approval from the National Payment Commission of India (NPCI) with over 6 crore users on Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

When the messaging platform started its payment service, it got permission from NPCI for 2 crore users, and then for 4 crore users. Now after getting the permission of 6 crore more users, this figure for WhatsApp has increased to 10 crore. This means that now WhatsApp can include 10 crore users out of its 50 crore users in the payment service.

WhatsApp had been telling NPCI for years that India is the biggest market for it and no limit should be imposed on providing payment services to users here. In November 2021, NCPI had increased the limit for WhatsApp payment service from Rs 2 crore to Rs 4 crore.

NPCI had given permission to WhatsApp to launch payment service in 2020. The company has been continuously trying to work in accordance with Indian regulations for many years, which also included the terms of data storage. The Government of India wanted the company to store payment related data on a local server. There is a lot of crowd in the digital payment service sector in India. In India, WhatsApp competes with Alphabet’s Google Pay, SoftBank and Ant Group’s Paytm and Walmart’s PhonePe payment services.

A comment regarding this development was not yet available from WhatsApp. But NPCI confirmed the development in a statement to Reuters. This is a relief news for WhatsApp but the number of its users is more than 50 crores. In this sense, even after the new limit, the payment service of the platform can develop only within a limited scope.