NPCI allows WhatsApp to offer payment services; caps individual player's UPI market share at 30% - Times of India
MUMBAI: The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Thursday allowed Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp to start its payments service in the country in a "graded" manner. The announcement by NPCI came minutes after it limited a single third party like WhatsApp or its rivals like Google Pay or Walmart's PhonePe to handle only 30 per cent of overall UPI transaction volumes by putting a cap. NPCI runs the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) used for real-time payments between peers or at merchants' end while making purchases. Having a cap on the transaction volume will help in de-risking the entire set-up and is essential as UPI, which surpassed two billion transactions a month mark in October, grows further, NPCI said in a statement. The industry has been feeling that allowing WhatsApp into payments may drive up volumes in the Indian digital payments space. In China, Wechat alone has over 1 billion active users for its payment services. WhatsApp has 400 million users in India while other Third Party App Providers (TPAPs) -- Google Pay had 75 million and PhonePe had 60 million -- as of May. WhatsApp has been running a pilot service for the last two years but was not given a formal go-ahead because of data localisation requirements. "NPCI has given approval for Whatsapp to 'Go Live' on UPI in the multi-bank model. Read the full article