WhatsApp debuts in-app stickers for payments

WhatsApp has collaborated with five Indian women artists and illustrators to launch a new pack of payment stickers for its users in india.

It said these illustrations are built on various cultural expressions related to money exchange. Among the artists who have collaborated for this initiative include Anjali Mehta, Anuja Pothireddy, Neethi, Osheen Silva, and Mira Felicia Malhotra.

Manesh Mahatme, Director of Payments at WhatsApp India had earlier previewed this feature on September 30 while unveiling the ₹ symbol in its chat composer in a bid to drive awareness of its payments feature on WhatsApp.

"Our aim is to onboard the next 500 million to the digital payments ecosystem and drive financial inclusion at scale. Throughout the expanse of our country, with varied people, across geographies and languages, our attempt is to build as many personalised and exciting features that give our users reasons to celebrate digital payments" he said.

"Relatable expressive content such as Stickers is a powerful way to democratize payments, beyond any language barriers. As we go forward, we will continue to build more options and features for people to express their payments journey as they like" Mahatme added.

Last month, Mahatme had said that they will allow everyone to create stickers relevant to them and that part of the country in the future. Users will be able to add these stickers while sending payments on the app.

WhatsApp, which operates its payment service on UPI platform, saw its transactions double in September, albeit on a small base.

The Facebook-owned messaging app saw volumes jump from 5 lakh in August to 10 lakh in September. The value of transactions on WhatsApp also increased from Rs 44.70 crore in August to Rs 62.31 crore in September. That said, WhatsApp’s share in the volume of UPI payments stayed at a meagre 0.27 percent for the month.

Mahatme on September 30 said they are scaling up the service in a phased manner right now and partnering with NPCI to work through the scale "Our focus right now is to drive awareness of our payments feature on WhatsApp and to build new use cases to transact," he said. It's worth noting that WhatsApp is currently restricted to 20 million users as of now, as per NPCI.