After three months, WhatsApp Pay not in full play

What’s up with WhatsApp, specifically its newish payments business? Contrary to expectations of many market observers, WhatsApp has processed just 1.6 million of the over 6.7 billion transactions on India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) since its launch in November.

WhatsApp insiders say this is part of its strategy. “We are in it for the long haul; it’s a marathon not a sprint and we are in no hurry and want to get this piece right,” a person close to the company told ET, requesting anonymity as they are not authorised to speak with the media. “To get the simplicity of WhatsApp’s interface for payments is a complex task. We want to ensure that the experience for customers is smooth.”

Market observers say the challenge of India’s sophisticated payments architecture, a raging political debate around ownership of digital data, coupled with the social messenger’s global experiences such as in Brazil could be the reasons. Within a few days of WhatsApp’s payment service going live, the central bank of Brazil had taken it down owing to an uncertain regulatory climate.