Whatsapp has seen an increase UPI payments through its app recording nearly 2-3 million payments every day. according to one report (opens in new tab) by the Economic Times, users who have registered for WhatsApp payment increased after the company announced its cashback offers. To onboard more users to the service, WhatsApp was offering money back up to Rs 105. Refund amount is provided upon completing three in-app transactions.
The report states that the company should maintain payment traffic by providing more cashback offers to customers. They are also working on integrating many of the country’s companies into the platform. WhatsApp can also provide more incentives for businesses to integrate payments through their respective WhatsApp Business accounts.
WhatsApp Pay’s journey in India was slow initially. Although the feature was available on the app, many users were skeptical of using the service amid privacy and security concerns at the time. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) had also recently raised the limit on the number of users who can transact via WhatsApp Pay to 400 million.
As per the market share as of April this year, it appears that PhonePe and Google Pay still hold the majority of transaction traffic in the country. They account for 47% and 34% respectively, while WhatsApp had a market share of 0.04%. It will be interesting to see what the new numbers are now that there are new developments.
WhatsApp Pay may get lucky
Cashback offers will be a boost for WhatsApp Pay. For end users like us, the benefit may not exist in the long run. We’ve seen Google Pay and other apps provide large refund amounts, which slowly become smaller amounts. Users have already started to take advantage of WhatsApp’s initial cashback campaign by making the Re 1 payment as well. So while WhatsApp is happy with the increase in traffic, the excitement may be short-lived.
But not to sound disheartening and gloomy, WhatsApp might actually get lucky if the NPCI enforces its market domination rules. The government body has strict guidelines that no app should have more than 30% market share of total transactions to avoid monopoly. Apps can be penalized with a restriction on the number of users who can transact on their apps.
