WhatsApp Pay remains in the slow lane four months since November launch

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions through WhatsApp remained tepid in March, four months since the feature went live for 20 million users on the messaging app. Despite early predictions that payments via the messaging app would explode once the feature went live, WhatsApp accounted for only 0.02% of UPI volumes and 0.01% of transaction value.

Industry executives FE spoke to said that the limited number of transactions might be attributable to the fact that the Facebook-owned company may not have begun implementing its plans for payments. “They haven’t quite given it a push, at least not yet,” a senior executive with a private bank said on condition of anonymity.