WhatsApp payments test run in India a success: Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, in the company earnings call on Wednesday claimed that WhatsApp’s payments test has been running successfully on beta version, being tried by 1 million Indians, as per a report in Quartz.

In February, WhatsApp launched a beta version of its payments feature for nearly a million Indians. The function faced stiff opposition from other competitors such as Paytm, which said WhatsApp had created a closed garden on the Indian government-backed unified payment interface (UPI) by restricting transactions to its own users.

However, that has not stopped Indians from using the payments feature on WhatsApp, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s Q2 2018 earnings call on July 25, “Of the people who have tested this, feedback and usage have been powerful. All signs point to many people wanting to use this when the government gives us the green light. Over the next five years, we’re focused on building out the business ecosystem around messaging on WhatsApp and Messenger.”

As WhatsApp plans its big launch, the formal delay delay WhatsApp Payments is giving companies like Paytm, Google's Tez and Sweden's Truecaller to expand their reach in India.  The testing of WhatsApp Payments has been on in the country since February, to ensure they are ready to take on any competition, and also tighten any data security lapses.