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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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...
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The long play: Once tourists are happy with it they go home and want to pay that way at home, too.
Ofcourse they will. They are not idiots. It's fucking Facebook we are talking here.
Google, otoh...
Approx 340 million users in India: https://www.statista.com/statistics/289778/countries-with-th...
https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/npci-imposes-cap-on-...
Government may also remove wallets (which aren't part of UPI) completely in future through regulation.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/6/21552325/whatsapp-payment...
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.
This is by WhatsApp, the company, itself.
https://english.jagran.com/technology/npci-announces-30-per-...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Don't privatise charity & security; humanise it.
