Following the demonetization in India during the fall of 2016, the popularity of mobile payment and digital wallet applications have skyrocketed. With the sudden popularity of digital wallet and payment solutions like PayTm, more mobile developers have shown interest recently to integrate mobile payments feature in their applications for Indian users. Truecaller is one of the latest apps to introduce mobile payments in India.
Now we have reports that the most popular instant messaging application out there, WhatsApp, is planning to introduce peer-to-peer mobile payment solutions within the application for the Indian audience. When reached out for comments by TechCrunch, the officials did neither confirm nor deny the reports.
In a statement that followed, WhatsApp said:
India is an important country for WhatsApp, and we’re understanding how we can contribute more to the vision of Digital India. We’re exploring how we might work with companies that share this vision and continuing to listen closely to feedback from our users.
While visiting India back in February, co-founder of WhatsApp Brian Acton had confirmed that the company was indeed in the early stages of introducing payment services within the app.
WhatsApp’s parent company, Facebook, has already added payments onto their Messenger application in the US. However, as WhatsApp is more popular in India, it makes more sense for WhatsApp to bring such an offering to the Indian masses.
