In a pivotal development that seeks to enhance business-customer interactions in India, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently introduced the integration of UPI payments within WhatsApp Business messaging. This announcement was part of the virtual Meta Conversations event staged at the Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai.
WhatsApp, already a popular messaging service in India, is set to further facilitate its user base by expanding its payment options. Customers can conveniently pay businesses directly on the app, using their preferred UPI option. “This initiative will simplify payments to Indian businesses within a WhatsApp chat using any preferred method,” Zuckerberg noted during the announcement.
The new service incorporates multiple payment avenues including Pay on WhatsApp, netbanking, and various UPI options like Google Pay, PhonePe, and Paytm, with RazorPay and PayU being the initial payment partners facilitating seamless transactions.
Alongside this, Meta is extending its Meta Verified initiative to encompass businesses on platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook. This program, which began with individual profiles earlier this year, will now grant businesses official badges, protection against impersonation, enhanced account support, and new business features, prioritising smaller enterprises before scaling up to larger ones in the coming months.
To further streamline business operations, Meta will introduce ‘WhatsApp Flows’, an automation tool for common business processes such as ticket bookings or form submissions, in the weeks to come.
Complementing these developments, Sandhya Devanathan, Meta’s VP for India, revealed plans to upskill 10 million traders across 29 states in 11 Indian languages within the next three years. Devanathan emphasised WhatsApp’s penetration in India, highlighting that 80% of Indian consumers favor messaging as the primary channel to engage with businesses. She cited the app’s extensive usage for various daily transactions and customer service queries, often conducted in languages other than English.
As WhatsApp further embeds itself in the daily lives of Indian smartphone users, this move signifies a major step in the country’s digital evolution. With its global user base reaching 3.8 billion monthly users, as stated by Meta, these latest features are expected to reinforce WhatsApp’s position as a leader in fostering efficient business transactions and communication, thereby nurturing a digitally advanced and interconnected India.
