WHATSAPP has brought digital payments to its hugely-successful messaging app as part of a beta test in
India.
WhatsApp has started to roll-out its long-awaited digital payments feature in India.
The Facebook-owned messaging app has been working on bringing peer-to-peer payments to the app since early last year.
However, WhatsApp has now started to push-out the feature to a limited number of users in India.
Based on screenshots shared across social media, those with access to the feature will have to verify their phone number via SMS.
This will allow WhatsApp users access to the government-backed Unified Payments Interface within the chat app.
Once verified, users can then decide between a substantial list of available banks, including State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, and ICICI Bank.
India has the largest number of WhatsApp users anywhere in the world, with around 200 million people using it each day, TechCrunch reports.
It’s not difficult to see why WhatsApp would choose to roll-out this crucial new feature in such an important market first.
Facebook and WhatsApp have yet to confirm the new feature.
The companies will likely wait until payments are roll-out to users worldwide before making an official announcement.
Facebook, which bought WhatsApp for a record $19 billion back in February 2014, has already added a peer-to-peer payment solution to its Messenger chat app.
Meanwhile, Apple introduced the ability to send money via Apple Pay within its iMessage chat service with the launch of iOS 11.2 in the United States last year.