You can now send money through WhatsApp using UPI, here's how

You will now be able to send money through popular messaging app WhatsApp as the service received approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to go live on Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in the multi-bank model.

The approval comes after two years of testing. 

“We’ve been working on this with the National Payments Corporation of India, who oversee everything to make sure it’s secure and reliable. And we’ve built it using India’s Unified Payments Interface, which makes it easy for anyone to instantly accept payments across different apps -- and for companies to provide people with great services,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement.

“With UPI, India has created something truly special and is opening up a world of opportunities for micro and small businesses that are the backbone of the Indian economy. India is the first country to do anything like this. I’m glad we were able to support this effort and work together to help achieve a more digital India. I want to thank all our partners who’ve made this possible,” he added.

WhatsApp can expand its UPI user base in a graded manner starting with a maximum registered user base of 20 million in UPI, NPCI said.

The Facebook-owned private messaging service has a huge user base of over 400 million users in India.

The move comes after NPCI in August had informed the Reserve Bank of India that WhatsApp had met data localisation requirements.

In June, Brazil became the first country to roll out WhatsApp payment service.

In India, the WhatsApp payment service will compete against other major players like Google Pay and PhonePe, among others.

WhatsApp Pay is available in ten regional Indian languages and both iOS and Android users can use it by updating to the latest version of the app.