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WhatsApp move into digital payments in India, its biggest market
that is home to 200 million of its billion plus global users,
would replicate similar moves by messaging apps like Tencent
Holdings Ltd's WeChat in China.
WhatsApp is working to launch person-to-person payments in India
in the next six months, news website The Ken reported earlier on
Tuesday, citing unnamed sources.
A job advertisement on WhatsApp's website said it was looking
for a candidate with a technical and financial background - who
understands India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and the
BHIM payments app that enable money transfers and merchant
payments using mobile numbers - to be its digital transactions
lead for the country. (http://bit.ly/2oTyOnn)
"India is an important country for WhatsApp, and we're
understanding how we can contribute more to the vision of
Digital India," a WhatsApp spokesman said, referring to a
flagship government program that aims to boost the use of
Internet-based services in the country.
"We're exploring how we might work with companies that share
this vision and continuing to listen closely to feedback from
our users," the spokesman said, declining to elaborate further.
Digital transactions in India have surged after Prime Minister
Narendra Modi's shock ban of certain high-value bank notes in
November that accounted for more than 80 percent of the
country's currency in circulation at the time.
In February, WhatsApp's co-founder, Brian Acton, had told local
media that the app was in early stages of investigating digital
payments in the country and that he had talked to the Indian
government about the matter.
Just last week, Swedish communications app Truecaller, which has
a large user base in India, started a mobile payment service in
the country based on the UPI platform.
(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Euan Rocha and
Himani Sarkar)
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