WhatsApp Pay strengthens its UPI offering — ties up with SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank

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WhatsApp Pay strengthens its UPI offering —  ties up with SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank
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  • WhatsApp Pay has partnered with four major banks in India – State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank.
  • WhatsApp Pay finally received the approval to operate the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments from the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) in November 2020.
  • However, it initially has a limit of 20 million users.
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Facebook-led payments service WhatsApp Pay has partnered with four major banks in India – State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank to strengthen its UPI offering.


“UPI is a transformative service and we jointly have the opportunity to bring the benefits of our digital economy and financial inclusion to a large number of users who have not had full access to them before,” said Abhijit Bose, Head of WhatsApp, India in a statement.

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WhatsApp continued to stress on making payments “as easy as sending a message”.


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WhatsApp Pay finally received the approval to operate the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments from the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) in November 2020. However, it initially has a limit of 20 million users.


India is the first country where Facebook had begun its tryst with payments back in 2018 when WhatsApp began beta testing payments in the country.


Since then, the company had met with several regulatory hurdles relating to data localisation, which was followed by a promise of storing data locally and WhatsApp Pay submitting revised data localization compliance this year.


At the Facebook Fuel For India 2020 summit, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg also pushed for WhatsApp Pay’s growth in India. “We just launched WhatsApp payments in India last month – now you can send money to your friends and family through WhatsApp, as easily as sending a message. That was possible because of the UPI system that has been built in India,” said Zuckerberg during a chat with Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani.
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