The WhatsApp Payments feature that will let users in India to send and receive money from their friends from the messaging app itself. The messaging platform will integrate its peer-to-peer UPI or Unified Payments Interface based digital payments platform with leading banks, including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and Axis Bank. However, users who are registered as merchants on the chat app or have a WhatsApp Business account will still not be able to use this feature. For those unaware, UPI is like a unique identification of the user which bank uses to transfer money via IMPS. WhatsApp has been working on the digital transaction feature since 2017, once it got approval from the Indian government to integrate UPI into its messaging service. The UPI-based payment feature has been spotted in WhatsApp beta version 2.18.41 for Android and 2.18.21 for iOS. With a strong user base of over 200 million across India, WhatsApp is likely to be at advantage from the start giving tough completion to the already existing digital wallets in the country, such as Paytm, Hike, MobiKwik, government-owned BHIM to the recently launched Google Tez. To activate the feature you need to have the latest update of WhatsApp. And if someone who has the feature of WhatsApp payment already live messages to your device, you will need to reboot the app in order to get ‘Payments’ reflect on your app. Once the Payments is reflected in your app, all you need to do is follow the below mentioned steps to start transferring money via WhatsApp. To activate UPI or Unified Payments Interface on WhatsApp, you need to follow the below steps: Note: If the user you wish to transfer money doesn’t have WhatsApp Payments, then the messaging app will advise you about the same. Last month, WhatsApp had officially rolled out “WhatsApp Business”, a free-to download Android app for small businesses to help them communicate better with their customers and vice-versa in India. Source: Financial Express
