WhatsApp has been granted permission by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to roll out its payment service to all users in India.

WhatsApp Pay allows users to make payments directly within the app through India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) using credit or debit cards.

Previously, the Meta-owned messaging service had been limited by the NPCI on the number of users and had been instructed to expand its user base in a “phased manner.”

The NPCI stated that WhatsApp will have to comply with all existing guidelines governing Third Party Application Providers (TPAP) as part of the new conditions.

Meta first launched the payment service in September 2023 in partnership with Razorpay and PayU. Companies are not charged for the in-app payments.

At the time, Meta said it was introducing the service on WhatsApp to allow businesses to “build relationships and get more done.”

According to WhatsApp, around 535.8 million people use the messaging service in India, making it the country with the greatest number of users in the world. This figure is expected to grow to around 765.67 million over the next two years.

India is also the world’s biggest downloader of WhatsApp Business, with around 215 million downloads on Android and iOS devices.

---