Send Payments in India with WhatsApp | Hacker News Reader

Send Payments in India with WhatsApp

blog.whatsapp.com

143 pointsgraposaymaname112 comments

In India and I have WhatsApp Payment enabled for more than a year (if I remember it right). I guess I was one of their early beta tester.

While it is convenient to send money to another person using WhatsApp but I have used it only few times in more than a year or so having it, even though on an avg' I do atleast couple of transactions a day.

One of the big reason for me to use it so less is perhaps because among my contacts and with whom I have need to exchange money were not part of beta program, BUT STILL I think P2P transactions are overrated as a focus area.

Most of my transaction happens due to ecommerce (food delivery, online shopping and others such), offline buys (ex. grocery store payment using shopkeeper's QR Code), transactions using bank app (Ex. for big ticket items like monthly rents, regular payments like electricity, credit card bills), and things like quick bank balance check which is super convenient using Payment Apps like GooglePay and others.

WhatsApp payment experience is very bare bones, it just focuses on casual transactions among ones contacts - not on deep and broad payment experience in different domains as one encounters in real life.

Famous last words perhaps: WhatsApp payment feature would be yet another payment mechanism in an already crowded space, it would not make much difference to us user's life, UNLESS they focus on payment space very deeply and bring merchants, online commerce etc. into picture.

I believe there is a big value in touristic areas, once they allow it globally. If tourists can pay easily without needing money exchange bevorhand this can increase spendings. Risk is that the app might show values in home currency, which makes total ripoffs more transparent (but can encourage with a "oh so cheap!")

The long play: Once tourists are happy with it they go home and want to pay that way at home, too.

Do you want to give your personal phone number to anyone you buy something from?

Whether I am willing is secundary.

I observed the impact of WhatsApp (without payment) in indonesia where free basics / internet.org made WhatsApp the ubiquitous communication channel for talking to the hostels landlord, the taxi driver, the restaurant, ... using anything else causes costs, which they wanted to avoid. If that now also handles the payment for the taxi or hotel or whatever it's the clear choice ... If I like it or not.

For my agenda I'd rip Facebook apart. But that only counts a little in reality.

Do you think there will be a way to pay anonymously?

Cash payments can already be done anonymously.

never heard of crypto?

Here in Southern Africa using generic airtime that can be transferred around as a currency is quite big. I expect something like this would be a hit here.

Sound more like tokens, cryptocurrencies. How popular is cryptocurrencies in your country?

WhatsApp payment is step-1 of many, that would make jiomart the Indian super-app, like wechat.

> UNLESS they focus on payment space very deeply and bring merchants, online commerce etc. into picture.

Ofcourse they will. They are not idiots. It's fucking Facebook we are talking here.

True. Say or think what you want about them, they know how to build, deliver and maintain good end-to-end products.

Google, otoh...

I am predicting that this will beat Google and paytm to take the first place (30% of market share). Whatsapp is insanely popular here in India.

Phones are sold here with features like 'Runs Whatsapp'.

My grandmother doesn't know to operate the android keyboard. She uses whatsapp. It's that popular.

Adding a contact to whatsapp, for payment means contact spamming. In no time, your phone will be filled with numerous contacts, that you may or may not remember.

India has awesome apps for doing peer to peer payment.

UPI system allows you to create custom UPI id's, linked to your chosen Bank account (you can link more than 1 account, with 1 acc being the active one at any given time, switch between accounts, etc), you can create multiple ID's linked to different bank accounts, you can create hundreds of thousands of ID's to link to invoices, contracts, dates, times, etc. All it takes for a payment is for you to share the ID, or convert it into a QR code for scanning by the other party.

I don't see why WA would take 30% of market share.

Most money transfers are usually commerce related, rather than linked to your social network.

> Most money transfers are usually commerce related, rather than linked to your social network.

UPI can be used for everything. Business and friends. And whatsapp wants to pair this with WA business (which itself is growing at an alarming rate. I am getting OTP's from businesses on WA)

If you are already using WA for sending money, why won't you use it for payments? The steps are the same. The interface is the same.

People will always use an app their friends are using. Probably the main reason why Facebook hasn't died. Network effect.

> If you are already using WA for sending money, why won't you use it for payments?

Yes, Payments to business that exists within WhatsApp. That would not lead to "30%" marketshare.

Case in point - Amazon Pay in India is lagging way behind (~5% marketshare) inspite it having billions and exclusive play within largest ecommerce property in India.

Network effect is true for walled gardens.

In this case, the UPI system is like a utility. Available to all, robust and incredibly low barriers of entry.

Network effect will still take place with these apps. The average Indian does not know UPI is a framework. I have to explain that any UPI app can connect with any other UPI almost weekly.

My father still thinks that Google Pay can only send money to a QR code with the Google Pay logo on it.

In my interactions, even vegetable vendors are, on average, aware that any app will work. For them it is all amalgamated into 'mobile payments'. Most of them have kids who setup the thing and generally, there is high trust in the system, mainly because a transaction is either done or not. There is no done on one end and pending on the other.

> In my interactions, even vegetable vendors are, on average, aware that any app will work.

That's impressive. Every vegetable vendor I meet will ask me to use GPay, because that is what they use.

So far, they are only covering P2P cases. Not payments to vendor/shop/businesses, which requires scanning a QR code.

A large majority of shops and vendors operate UPI from the shopkeeper's phone here. It's the same as sending money to him

People like your grand mother dont send money online.

Well now she can, once I set up everything for her (pin, bank account linking, etc)

I do not even let my parents have net/mobile banking bcz online is full of crooks and fraudsters. hey its just me.

Yeah that's my only concern. I'll see if there is a way to setup payment notifications after asking her about it.

You underestimate Indian grandmothers - they are better than the rest of us at using things like WhatsApp to it's fullest.

I never underestimate anyones abilities. its none of my business. if you think letting elderly being taken advantage of by online fraudsters is a good thing or far fetched idea, good luck with that.

You are underestimating the small learning curve, even in case of grandmother. My mom's a grandmom who juts bought a Netflix, Prime and Voot subscription. I now bought her a new fire tv. More importantly, my parents now transact using Phone Pe.

Yes, there are times though when she writes her message on paper, takes it's picture and whatsapps it to me because typing so much takes a lot more time.

That's kinda the point

Digital payments have really picked up here. His grandmother may use it to pay the vegetable seller, or at any local shop.

They might receive money though.

I did the first payment on WhatsApp during their early beta period, in Feb 2018 to be precise. It has taken a while to get to general availability. Even now, for some strange reason they are permitted to serve only 20m users. Their beta was 2m users and they blew through that very early.

The user experience was fantastic - easier than sending a camera pic or audio message. They had zero promotions during the beta period unlike everyone else who were offering tons of freebies, not just at initial launch but even till now. If this works (as I think it will) it will lay waste to the billions of dollars that GooglePay, PhonePe and Paytm threw around.

Wonder if that will make the others throw around more cash to retain users or if the market will switch to a more rational model where people are not being paid to pay.

Seems like after Facebook invested in Reliance, they got the government approval .

Also NPCI introduced an absurd new rule that will help new entrants gain market share at the expense of established apps. Smells like Mukesh Ambani's handiwork to help FB.

https://english.jagran.com/technology/npci-announces-30-per-...

This is such weird regulation. Rather than set rules for a level playing field it seeks to dictate outcomes. Telling payment providers that they can’t exceed 30% of total payments is as absurd as telling Apple or Samsung to not exceed 30% of the smartphone market.

They’re supposed to stop selling or rate limiting when they’re reaching their cap?

I’d love to get the input of the blind devotees of the supposedly pro business Prime Minister of India. There’s no shortage of you lot on HN. Could you please explain how making an app stop working in the best interests of Indian consumers?

But please don’t try “The central bank is independent” as an explanation. No one believes that, least of all you.

Not sure why this is getting downvoted. It's plainly there to help WhatsApp Pay gain traction at the expense of Google Pay, PayTM, and PhonePe

The rule being referred to, I believe, is that RBI doesn’t want any single payment app to have more than 30% market share. I believe, that’s a good thing and good to see it being thought out much earlier in the lifecycle of UPI. When it comes to people’s money, it’s in the interest of the country not to have monopolies.

> RBI doesn’t want any single payment app to have more than 30% market share

Got it, but how do you limit an app? Does google pay simply stop onboarding new users at some point? Do my transactions start failing after a certain day of the month? Both of these are horrible UX and unfair to google pay who has developed their good user experience.

If this rule is not rolled back, I predict that India's digital payments landscape will be a barren wasteland in a year's time. There is no incentive for Google or Phonepe or Paytm to continue working on an app that is guaranteed to never grow beyond where they already are.

Personally, if gpay transactions become unreliable because they have to drop every 5th transaction to satisfy the quota, I'll switch back to cash.

So, lets say there are only 2 apps in the market after a few years. For what ever reasons.

Do they stop doing transactions after they reach their 30% cap?

Every bank has it's UPI app. And there are hundreds of banks in India.

Also by definition there won’t be. Because two apps can capture 60% market share, there’s still 40% to be captured. Free markets would incentivise people to come up with at least 2 other players, no?

I think its the opposite. The reason whatsapp was not getting approval was for the fear of monopoly. They brought this rule just before allowing WhatsApp. Also note that existing players still have time to comply but WhatsApp has to comply with this since day 1

Should have done 3-4 years ago. Now there are at least 3 apps fighting for leadership in payments: PayTM, Google Pay and PhonePe. Will be hard for Whatsapp to break into.

No single app can dominate the market because National Payments Corporation of India has decided to impose a cap on transactions that a single payment application can process.

https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/npci-imposes-cap-on-...

This is pretty consumer-unfriendly. Users are forced to use a different app if their chosen app has 30% market share?

Agree, that this sounds pretty consumer-unfriendly on the surface. But I think the law is fascinating, because of how effective it (might) be in limiting monopolies. Applying the same law to online advertisement or search engine market share would probably be a benefit for the consumers.

How?! After reaching 100 million searches in a month, Google should stop serving search queries? How weird would that be?

If you’ve already reached your 30% cap, what incentive do you have to improve your service?

>If you’ve already reached your 30% cap, what incentive do you have to improve your service?

By having to compete with other services who are trying to get your share?

This doesn’t sound very enforceable. Say users flock to WhatsApp. “Sorry, we can’t process your payment because people like you aren’t using competitor services enough. Please try again next month.” ???

I'd assume they'd just have to throttle users.

Couldn’t they process the payment on someone else’s rails?

I would prefer opening a different app to complete the payment than living in a society where payment space is completely dominated by one company

They all use UPI too which means there isn't a vendor lock-in similar to paypal.

Government may also remove wallets (which aren't part of UPI) completely in future through regulation.

There is currently a new law regarding this. RBI has mandated that Wallets without balance for 12 Months would be deactivated.

They have been trying for 2 years but were blocked by the government.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/6/21552325/whatsapp-payment...

Sending money to others in Whatsapp has the following issues

To send, you have to have a conversation going on in Whatsapp. That means adding that person to your contact list. This is problematic because, you deal with many unknown vendors over time. Using whatsapp to send payments would spam your contact list.

edit:

Also, this is using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). There are a lot of apps that have much better UI/UX & Value adds than WA. I use PayTM, in which, I scan a QR code with the UPI address, do the payment and be done with it. Very simple to use, no issue of confusion / sending money to wrong person, No known privacy issues, etc.

Also, It's not like a lot of people want to send money to their friends. Usually, it's business transactions.

It could work for off bank micro loans, provided there is an app for tracking and charging interest, etc.

You can WhatsApp someone without saving their number. Just use the link https://wa.me/<phone number goes here>/

This is by WhatsApp, the company, itself.

FYI, the number must contain the international country code

There's no downside to vendors here, other than the bad UX which zero people care about in practice.

You think WhatsApp is incapable of building a QR scanner?

I guess they are aiming to be the indian WeChat

They could have been like WeChat, if it was not acquired by Facebook. Facebook avoids apps competing with each other. Not every CEO has guts to create a product that destroys their major profit source like Ma (Ten Cent).

The difference being that it's neither an Indian app nor are the majority of their users based in India.

> nor are the majority of their users based in India.

Approx 340 million users in India: https://www.statista.com/statistics/289778/countries-with-th...

And what’s current MAU globally? 2B?

Both of these factors are less relevant than the fact that almost every internet connected Indian uses Whatsapp.

Is that relevant?

Yes.. together with Reliance

I looked up P2P payments in India, and found this TC article from April 2019, "Amazon Pay launches peer-to-peer payments in India"[1], according to which an April 2019 launch was already a "late start":

> Amazon is getting a late start, however, when it comes to P2P payments in India. Its rivals (Paytm, Google Pay and PhonePe) already support P2P, with Google Pay in the lead.

I wonder what differentiates this offering from WhatsApp? (I guess the majority of people already establish contact on WhatsApp?)

Also, given that India semi-recently blocked some entertainment apps on national security grounds (let's assume the stated intent for the sake of the argument), I wonder if anyone in the Indian government is alarmed that U.S. megacorps hold IMO much more precious keys to the financial security of their 1.4B population?

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/amazon-pay-launches-peer-t...

> Also, given that India semi-recently blocked some entertainment apps on national security grounds (let's assume the stated intent for the sake of the argument), I wonder if anyone in the Indian government is alarmed that U.S. megacorps hold IMO much more precious keys to the financial security of their 1.4B population?

Most of these payment systems are just a wrapper around GOI's UPI (which is one of the best things to come out of India in the past decade)[1]. The money remains in banks throughout the transaction. Additionally, very little of people's money is stored in digital wallets and that too for a short period of time (anecdotal). However, yes it should be a cause of concern for any country when foreign firms are tightly involved in its economic sector, and we cannot discount interventions on basis of internal security and geopolitical situations.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface

Good thing these foreign apps don’t have access to funds. They still have access to the transaction data, right? So they can build financial profiles on their users, as well as communications profiles (even if only metadata is available) since they dominate that market at well. Seems like a gold mine for intelligence operations. Are there laws mandating that the data has to stay on Indian servers and be insulated from the outside? Or maybe government/public sector employees can’t use these foreign services (seems unlikely)?

> They still have access to the transaction data, right? So they can build financial profiles on their users, as well as communications profiles (even if only metadata is available) since they dominate that market at well. Seems like a gold mine for intelligence operations.

Definitely. That's what they're all in for.

> Are there laws mandating that the data has to stay on Indian servers and be insulated from the outside?

GOI have started enforcing these requirements but I'm not sure where exactly the situation is right now.

> Or maybe government/public sector employees can’t use these foreign services (seems unlikely)?

Only recently these things have picked up and are considered a serious threat to the nation's security and sovereignty. The defense forces are more serious about it right now but maybe with time it'll change for other government employees too.

> I wonder what differentiates this offering from WhatsApp?

Whatsapp active users are order of magnitudes more than other platform. New users would want to save the hassle of new app, if both platforms are comparable in offerings.

> I wonder if anyone in the Indian government is alarmed that U.S. megacorps hold IMO much more precious keys to the financial security of their 1.4B population?

Nobody was alarmed at Chinese corps holding so much data. The indian govt cannot face china on the battlefield (close ties, less tech and military capabilities) so had to resort to shitty things like banning Tiktok and PUBG. The media praised the move as brilliant, when it was the worst possible thing. Instead of implementing privacy laws, they are banning apps.

> Nobody was alarmed at Chinese corps holding so much data.

People did get alarmed after the Galwan valley incident. Banning Chinese apps might be a "shitty" thing but I would rather not have CCP easy access to the personal data of millions of Indians when the possibility of a war is very real.

India was launching Privacy Act but the Bill was changed beyond recognition through lobbying by Foreign MegaCorps particularly Facebook, Google and Amazon.

Then the govt is not really that effective as people make it to — prefers the interest of foreign mega corps before their own voters.

> Then the govt is not really that effective as people make it to.

They aren't. UPI was an exception.I'm still surprised it's this successful.

Considering the whole reason whatsapp pay got delayed in launching due to data storing requirements (all data to be stored strictly in India). I think we are ok on that front for now

From what I understand it wasn't just this. WhatsApp's initial implementation of UPI was that of a walled garden. Payments could be sent/received between WhatsApp users but you couldn't send/receive payments to/from another UPI app user. They did this by hiding the UPI ID from the user. Along with WhatsApp's mass user base, this would have resulted in fragmenting the ecosystem.

I have enrolled in the beta program for WhatsApp via Google Play so I had the payment option In the new implementation since a very long time (can see a payment from July 2018). In their new implementation they have exposed the UPI ID so compatibility with other UPI apps is ensured. For transactions with other WhatsApp users you need not bother with UPI ID. This dual approach is the same as that of Google Pay.

I made my first WhatsApp payment in August 2019, so reckon they rolled out for iOS much sooner.

While WhatsApp has done a brilliant job rolling this out, my only grievance is the WhatsApp UPI ID they have given. Mine’s something like 91xxxx.wa.efo@bankname. Life would be a lot easier if we get something like 91xxx@whatsapp. That would also enable me to pay directly via WA while shopping on Amazon/ Flipkart. Currently, I depend on PhonePe and PayTM to complete my online transactions using UPI. I understand the characters succeeding @ is mostly a bank name offering UPI platform but even taking that into consideration, a username like 91xxx.wa@bankname would be much more convenient.

PS - I know “wa” in my username stands for WhatsApp but have no idea about “efo”. If someone would kindly proffer a suggestion.

The three characters are to avoid problems with generating upi ids with recycled numbers.

Mine has '5is' instead of your 'efo'.

So mine is 91xxxx.wa.5is@bankname as compared to your 91xxxx.wa.efo@bankname

We need separation of cash & comms.

The my should enable this in Canada.

No Venmo or Square Cash here.

It’s funny since Square does Cash App dev in Toronto: https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/Square/743999717607379-seni...

“Email Money Transfers” kinda work, but I can see a tech-forward alternative eating up 80-90% of that business. And I don’t think they plan on international business.

And as a “rich” country with a ton of immigrants, we probably have the most international remittances per capita.

Can you please provide encrypted backups first ? It's ridiculous to have no way of transferrig your data other than unencrypted Google Drive backups...

You can copy the db file from one phone to another and have all your chats sync up

Even on iOS devices?

No, but you can't use Google drive either on iPhones, IIRC.

No you can't. You can only use iCloud which is not 100% secure AFAIK.

Why iCloud it’s not %100 secure?

https://www.boxcryptor.com/en/blog/post/iphone-backup-icloud...

Though, it is possible that WhatsApp is encrypting backups before uploading them to iCloud.

I expect the support to be pathetic. I have had a transaction from April this year that is still stuck in processing... with no sign of refund.

And just like that Facebook just captured the market share considering the gigantic Whatsapp users in India.

Building features like splitwise, group payments etc would make them unbeatable in near future.

But the part that scares me the most are the various SCAMS that can take place, considering we're already dealing with UPI based payments scams which are happening round the clock.

point. Zuckerboi and his lot obviously have not given up completely on getting their way when it comes to financial services [including own currency]. becoming a major player on a vast market like India certainly makes it easier for them to proceed.

They(RBI & Govt of India) rather work on leaner AndroidOS (LineageOS + microG) and BhIM[1] like Apps for popular smartphones sold across India.

Don't privatise charity & security; humanise it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BHIM#Security

Many countries now have phone number based payment systems (e.g. Siirto and MobilePay in Finland). So maybe it is a time for universal system?

In EU we will soon have EMPSA so it's moving in the right direction: https://empsa.org/

Well, Europe, as they have several members from non-EU countries (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Norway, Switzerland).

Time to uninstall the app on my mom's phone.

While this is a great step towards bringing new users into the UPI ecosystem, it would also lead to rampant UPI scams to a lot of unsuspecting users - the most common being asking for an OTP to receive money - facilitated by the very ease WhatsApp provides. It's all too depressing the way majority of WhatsApp users will forward literally any message, though WhatsApp could do a better job of listing the origin of the message than just a `Forwarded` label.

Why is P2P more successful in India than in Africa (eg. South Africa)? Serious question and TIA for anyone with insight.

Reliance Jio gave everyone free internet. Hundreds of millions of Indians came online. More people started using UPI due to it being easy, no lock-ins, and digital. Then demonitisation happened in a week. The rest is history.

The single biggest contributor to the rise of UPI was demonetization and the significant push from companies & banks by offering discounts and removing transaction charges until recently.

In India, there are many marginal businesses which are not registered as a business. I expect a lot of P2P payments to be Peer to unregistered business.

Demonetization 2016

There was very little effect of Demonetization on UPI adoption, Growth rate of UPI was already very good before demonetization , Very little effect of Demonetization on it's adoption, Covid-19 actually gave more boost to UPI adoption of late. Don't any believe lies propagated by ruling parties.

I fear for more olx scams, whatsapp and upi payment will be heaven for scammer.

If this move is successful, it could also open the door for Facebook Libra.

How? And what can Libra offer? In India, these payments have to land in a Rupee account held in a bank.

UPI is something like a framework. All these apps access the UPI payment system. They do nothing on their own.

You can pay with Google Pay/PhonePe/Paytm/Amazon/Whatsapp with the same QR code.

It's like XMPP for payments.

Libra has no chance of getting into India. UPI is way too popular now.

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