WhatsApp digital payment application is expected to go live in India soon

tech2 News StaffJun 27, 2019 11:10:32 IST

Rumour has it that Facebook-owned WhatsApp will now be announcing its digital payment services to a wider audience very soon. Earlier, it was confirmed that WhatsApp had set up data storage units in India to bring payment service to its Indian users. The service of payment was available for a fraction of WhatsApp users in India for testing.

In April we heard that the WhatsApp is going through a third-party audit and now as per the recent report by Economic Times, the required work of data localisation is completed and as soon as the auditors submit the reports to regulator, WhatsApp can go live with its payment application.

(Also Read: Amazon pay starts offering peer to peer transactions using UPI via its Android app)

Image: Pixabay

Since WhatsApp is used by a huge chunk of the crowd in India, this service will make life easier for sure. According to Economic Times, WhatsApp is expected to go live in its Unified Interface based service with ICICI Bank. Services through Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, and SBI are expected to follow.

According to the guidelines of RBI, the company has to set up its data storage facilities in the country first, then go through the auditing process where the auditors are enrolled from Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT-IN.

WhatsApp launched its payment feature with ICICI bank but failed due to a lack of localisation of data storage. A spokesperson tells Economic Times that it is different this time and the flaw of localisation of data has been addressed.