WhatsApp’s global head, Will Cathcart has confirmed that WhatsApp is launching a payment system, WhatsApp Pay. The company said it has been testing its payment and it is expected to start working in India later in the year. The tests have been going on since last year in India.

 

India, which is WhatsApp’s biggest market with 400 million users will be the first to use this service. This is coming in the wake of Facebook’s cryptocurrency, Libra announcement. The company unveiled the digital coin in June 2019 along with its wallet service, Calibra.

 

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The company intends to use Libra to make purchases, send money and make donations. However, it will be impossible to launch in India because of the ban on cryptocurrency in the country.

 

Cathcart in a statement said: “We’re excited to have launched a successful pilot of WhatsApp Payments on the UPI standard, and we are looking forward to expanding it. WhatsApp Payments will make it as easy to pay someone on WhatsApp as it is to send a message.”

 

 

WhatsApp Pay will also launch in other international markets apart from India. In 2018, the company said it had developed a payments data storing system. Meanwhile, they explained that the system complies with the policies of the Reserve Bank of India.

 

This may be Facebook’s way of testing the waters of its payment system. The fact that they will use WhatsApp with the payment system will allow it delve into the financial sector globally.

 

Eventually, other countries will be able to use this service.

 

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