CollinsThe move comes as the parent company Facebook pushes ahead with plans to bring more e-commerce to all its platforms.
The WhatsApp Pay is designed to allow users to send money to one another for free or make purchases from small businesses.
In January, the chief executive Mark Zuckerberg outlined plans to offer the service in India, Mexico, and Indonesia.
On its blog, WhatsApp highlighted that the launch was part of a wider digital payment strategy across all Facebook’s platforms.
“Because payments on WhatsApp are enabled by Facebook Pay, in the future we want to make it possible for people and businesses to use the same card information across Facebook’s family of apps.”
While person-to-person payments will be free those with small businesses will have to pay a “processing fee to receive customer payments,” the blog stated.
WhatsApp has 120 million users in Brazil, which is the second-largest market after India for WhatsApp.
The company has already been trialing the payment service in India, where it has 400m users.
However, the firm’s efforts to launch WhatsApp Pay in India have been held up for two years by regulators.
Last month Facebook invested an undisclosed amount in Indonesia-based ride-hailing app Gojek.
The firms will use the tie-up to expand Gojek’s digital payments service GoPay.
Facebook bought WhatsApp for about $20bn in 2014. In February the messaging service said it had more than 2 billion users around the world.
In April, Facebook announced that it had bought a 10% stake in Indian telecoms group Reliance Jio for $5.7bn (£4.5bn).
That deal gives Facebook a powerful ally in Reliance Jio’s chairman Mukesh Ambani, who is Asia’s richest man.
How to Set up Payments on WhatsApp Pay for Android
To get started with payments on WhatsApp, you’ll first have to link your bank account to the service. UPI works primarily with your phone number, and the service works with all major banks in India. The best part is that even if you don’t have a UPI account set up with your bank, you will be able to use the payment option as WhatsApp will create a UPI ID for you. Here’s what you need to know:
- Open WhatsApp from the app drawer or home screen.
- Select the action overflow menu (three vertical dots on the top right corner).
- Hit Payments.
- Select Add new payment method.
- Select Accept and continue to get started.
- Choose your bank from the list. This should ideally be your primary UPI account.
- You’ll now need to verify your phone number. Make sure that the WhatsApp number you’re using is the same one registered with your bank account. Hit Verify via SMS to authenticate your bank account.
- Hit Allow to let WhatsApp verify that the SIM card is the one registered with your account.
- Tap Allow again for WhatsApp to send texts to authenticate your account.
- WhatsApp will now verify with your bank and pull up all accounts registered with your number. Select the one you’d like to use to finish setting up payments.
- Hit Done to finish setting up WhatsApp Pay.
- You should now see the payment method listed in the payments page.
How to Send Money from WhatsApp for Android
Sending money via WhatsApp is very straightforward. The payments option shows up directly in the conversation window, and transferring money (or requesting it) is as seamless as it can get:
- Select the contact you want to send money to.
- In the conversation window, select the clip icon.
- Choose Payment.
- Select the amount you’d like to send (you can also add a note).
- Enter your UPI PIN.
- You’ll see a confirmation message show up directly in the conversation window once the transaction is done.
That’s all there is to it. WhatsApp will add more features once it rolls out WhatsApp Pay this year, but in the meantime, you can use UPI to send and receive money from your contacts.
Feel free to share your experience using the new Whatsapp Pay.
Collins