What Changed after WhatsApp?s Entry into Payment Mode

Posted by john andric on February 22nd, 2018

Since the launch of the Beta version of the latest feature of WhatsApp Payments, a lot of buzz has been happening in the market. After months of anticipating, the payment feature by WhatsApp has been receiving both appreciations as well as criticism. Due to the promotion of UPI that is Unified Payments Interface by the government which also allowed the real-time bank-to-bank transactions with fewer entry barriers.

The whatsapp payments throw up new challenges for the existing payment companies, banks as well as mobile wallets to hold on to their shares in the market. ‘Consumer Payment’ is a low margin feature on which the business is completely defined by the whole scale of operations. Moreover, the main point is the user’s ease in using the whatsapp’s payment option which is further attracting more people to opt for Digital Payments.

The Chief Executive of the company PayU, Amrish Rau, praised this new feature by complementing the great User Experience he witnessed while using whatsapp’s latest feature. There were many more positive comments made on social media platform by people and payment companies also joined for the same. Another remark made by Snapdeal’s CEO, Kunal Bahl said that ‘Quite fascinating to see how many people have already started using the WhatsApp for the purpose of Payments in just a matter of few days.’

But all are not happy with this update like Paytm as quoted by many for crying out foul and raising concerns in the public eye for WhatsApp Payments. “Facebook is openly colonizing our Payment System and is also customizing the UPI as per their benefit. UPI was built as an India Stack but now some American Monopoly are twisting the UPI for customer implementations.” said by Paytm’s CEO Vijay Shekhar Verma. If you are not familiar with the India Stack, it is the backend software infrastructure that allows technologies to be built around the Aadhaar Authentication, eKYC, eSign, DigiLocker, and UPI.

According to Kunal Shah, the founder of Payment Company FREECHARGE, ‘All companies that are threatened by the WhatsApp Payments are doing to tag it as Anti-National and try to put it down as it is quite difficult to win on merit against such network system.’ In the statement made by several bank officials, it is said that the whatsapp payments will bring a change in India’s digital landscape forever. Many companies are now changing and modifying their App development Sydney according to these new changes that are about to take over by the majority of the population.