It’s possible that WhatsApp Payments was intended to be the game-changing feature that would allow it to rule the digital payments industry. In light of the fact that WhatsApp has over 1.5 billion active users each month, if all of them had access to the capability, it would overtake all other payment services in the globe. Of course, it is the final goal, but it is far from assured due to early problems with WhatsApp Payments, rival opposition, legislative opposition, and Facebook’s own problems with data issues.
A small number of users in India have access to WhatsApp Payments, but the country’s wide deployment, which was scheduled to start earlier this year, has been delayed. The infrastructure for data sharing between WhatsApp and Facebook is one of the main issues. The business claims to be facilitating payments over Facebook infrastructure. There isn’t much clarification on this, and after the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, there are legitimate worries about privacy and unauthorised data sharing.
WhatsApp is currently left with the task of pleading with regulatory and governmental organisations for approvals to begin the Payments implementation in India. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, disclosed during the Q2 2018 results call that the business is negotiating with the authorities for approval.
In India, we’ve been experimenting out payments via WhatsApp. It promotes greater financial inclusion by providing a really straightforward mechanism for users to send money to one another. Feedback and usage from those who have tested this have been really positive. When the government gives us the go-ahead, all indications point to a substantial number of people wanting to use this, Zuckerberg claimed.
The under-fire CEO also made a suggestion that payments might be made through Messenger and WhatsApp in additional areas.
In order to provide this capability to more people more quickly, we have widened our focus to include constructing it for additional nations. We will be concentrating on expanding the business environment for communications on WhatsApp and Messenger over the following five years.
The major stage is getting government approval, and while Facebook works to acquire the go-ahead, its competitors have been able to close the gap even further.
