WhatsApp Pay Launched In Brazil After Beta Testing In India For 2 Years

On Monday, after two years of testing in India but failing to launch services in the country due to regulatory issues, WhatsApp Pay was launched in Brazil. In a post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that Brazil is the first country where it is widely rolling out payments in WhatsApp.

WhatsApp users in Brazil can now send money to friends and family or pay a business right from your chat 💸💸💸 pic.twitter.com/BwrcCq9CJW

— WhatsApp Inc. (@WhatsApp) June 15, 2020

He also claimed that the small businesses will be able to make sales right within WhatsApp. "To do this, we're building on Facebook Pay, which provides a secure and consistent way to make payments across our apps," he added.

WhatsApp Pay first started testing in India on 1 million users, two years back, with the hope that the country will be the first to start using the technology in 2019. WhatsApp has 400 million monthly active users in India, whereas in Brazil, another emerging economy, the number is 120 million. In India, the beta testing did not use Facebook Pay but UPI.

However, WhatsApp Pay could not be fully launched in India as it was met with hurdles from RBI that has mandated all payments related data, in all forms, be stored within the country, which Facebook could not 100% comply with, as per news reports.

In Brazil, Zuckerberg said that WhatsApp is working with local banks, including Banco do Brasil, Nubank, Sicredi as well as Cielo, the leading payments processor for merchants in Brazil. The payment method will use a special six-digit PIN or fingerprint to secure transactions.