In India and I have WhatsApp Payment enabled for more than a year (if I remember it right). I guess I was one of their early beta tester.
While it is convenient to send money to another person using WhatsApp but I have used it only few times in more than a year or so having it, even though on an avg' I do atleast couple of transactions a day.
One of the big reason for me to use it so less is perhaps because among my contacts and with whom I have need to exchange money were not part of beta program, BUT STILL I think P2P transactions are overrated as a focus area.
Most of my transaction happens due to ecommerce (food delivery, online shopping and others such), offline buys (ex. grocery store payment using shopkeeper's QR Code), transactions using bank app (Ex. for big ticket items like monthly rents, regular payments like electricity, credit card bills), and things like quick bank balance check which is super convenient using Payment Apps like GooglePay and others.
WhatsApp payment experience is very bare bones, it just focuses on casual transactions among ones contacts - not on deep and broad payment experience in different domains as one encounters in real life.
Famous last words perhaps: WhatsApp payment feature would be yet another payment mechanism in an already crowded space, it would not make much difference to us user's life, UNLESS they focus on payment space very deeply and bring merchants, online commerce etc. into picture.
I believe there is a big value in touristic areas, once they allow it globally. If tourists can pay easily without needing money exchange bevorhand this can increase spendings. Risk is that the app might show values in home currency, which makes total ripoffs more transparent (but can encourage with a "oh so cheap!")
The long play: Once tourists are happy with it they go home and want to pay that way at home, too.
Here in Southern Africa using generic airtime that can be transferred around as a currency is quite big. I expect something like this would be a hit here.
Adding a contact to whatsapp, for payment means contact spamming. In no time, your phone will be filled with numerous contacts, that you may or may not remember.
India has awesome apps for doing peer to peer payment.
UPI system allows you to create custom UPI id's, linked to your chosen Bank account (you can link more than 1 account, with 1 acc being the active one at any given time, switch between accounts, etc), you can create multiple ID's linked to different bank accounts, you can create hundreds of thousands of ID's to link to invoices, contracts, dates, times, etc. All it takes for a payment is for you to share the ID, or convert it into a QR code for scanning by the other party.
I don't see why WA would take 30% of market share.
Most money transfers are usually commerce related, rather than linked to your social network.
I did the first payment on WhatsApp during their early beta period, in Feb 2018 to be precise. It has taken a while to get to general availability. Even now, for some strange reason they are permitted to serve only 20m users. Their beta was 2m users and they blew through that very early.
The user experience was fantastic - easier than sending a camera pic or audio message. They had zero promotions during the beta period unlike everyone else who were offering tons of freebies, not just at initial launch but even till now. If this works (as I think it will) it will lay waste to the billions of dollars that GooglePay, PhonePe and Paytm threw around.
Wonder if that will make the others throw around more cash to retain users or if the market will switch to a more rational model where people are not being paid to pay.
Also NPCI introduced an absurd new rule that will help new entrants gain market share at the expense of established apps. Smells like Mukesh Ambani's handiwork to help FB.
Should have done 3-4 years ago. Now there are at least 3 apps fighting for leadership in payments: PayTM, Google Pay and PhonePe. Will be hard for Whatsapp to break into.
Sending money to others in Whatsapp has the following issues
To send, you have to have a conversation going on in Whatsapp. That means adding that person to your contact list. This is problematic because, you deal with many unknown vendors over time. Using whatsapp to send payments would spam your contact list.
edit:
Also, this is using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). There are a lot of apps that have much better UI/UX & Value adds than WA. I use PayTM, in which, I scan a QR code with the UPI address, do the payment and be done with it. Very simple to use, no issue of confusion / sending money to wrong person, No known privacy issues, etc.
Also, It's not like a lot of people want to send money to their friends. Usually, it's business transactions.
It could work for off bank micro loans, provided there is an app for tracking and charging interest, etc.
They could have been like WeChat, if it was not acquired by Facebook. Facebook avoids apps competing with each other. Not every CEO has guts to create a product that destroys their major profit source like Ma (Ten Cent).
I looked up P2P payments in India, and found this TC article from April 2019, "Amazon Pay launches peer-to-peer payments in India"[1], according to which an April 2019 launch was already a "late start":
> Amazon is getting a late start, however, when it comes to P2P payments in India. Its rivals (Paytm, Google Pay and PhonePe) already support P2P, with Google Pay in the lead.
I wonder what differentiates this offering from WhatsApp? (I guess the majority of people already establish contact on WhatsApp?)
Also, given that India semi-recently blocked some entertainment apps on national security grounds (let's assume the stated intent for the sake of the argument), I wonder if anyone in the Indian government is alarmed that U.S. megacorps hold IMO much more precious keys to the financial security of their 1.4B population?
I made my first WhatsApp payment in August 2019, so reckon they rolled out for iOS much sooner.
While WhatsApp has done a brilliant job rolling this out, my only grievance is the WhatsApp UPI ID they have given. Mine’s something like 91xxxx.wa.efo@bankname. Life would be a lot easier if we get something like 91xxx@whatsapp. That would also enable me to pay directly via WA while shopping on Amazon/ Flipkart. Currently, I depend on PhonePe and PayTM to complete my online transactions using UPI. I understand the characters succeeding @ is mostly a bank name offering UPI platform but even taking that into consideration, a username like 91xxx.wa@bankname would be much more convenient.
PS - I know “wa” in my username stands for WhatsApp but have no idea about “efo”. If someone would kindly proffer a suggestion.
“Email Money Transfers” kinda work, but I can see a tech-forward alternative eating up 80-90% of that business. And I don’t think they plan on international business.
And as a “rich” country with a ton of immigrants, we probably have the most international remittances per capita.
Can you please provide encrypted backups first ? It's ridiculous to have no way of transferrig your data other than unencrypted Google Drive backups...
And just like that Facebook just captured the market share considering the gigantic Whatsapp users in India.
Building features like splitwise, group payments etc would make them unbeatable in near future.
But the part that scares me the most are the various SCAMS that can take place, considering we're already dealing with UPI based payments scams which are happening round the clock.
point.
Zuckerboi and his lot obviously have not given up completely on getting their way when it comes to financial services [including own currency].
becoming a major player on a vast market like India certainly makes it easier for them to proceed.
While this is a great step towards bringing new users into the UPI ecosystem, it would also lead to rampant UPI scams to a lot of unsuspecting users - the most common being asking for an OTP to receive money - facilitated by the very ease WhatsApp provides. It's all too depressing the way majority of WhatsApp users will forward literally any message, though WhatsApp could do a better job of listing the origin of the message than just a `Forwarded` label.
Reliance Jio gave everyone free internet. Hundreds of millions of Indians came online. More people started using UPI due to it being easy, no lock-ins, and digital. Then demonitisation happened in a week. The rest is history.
The single biggest contributor to the rise of UPI was demonetization and the significant push from companies & banks by offering discounts and removing transaction charges until recently.
In India, there are many marginal businesses which are not registered as a business. I expect a lot of P2P payments to be Peer to unregistered business.
[+] [-] achow|5 years ago|reply
While it is convenient to send money to another person using WhatsApp but I have used it only few times in more than a year or so having it, even though on an avg' I do atleast couple of transactions a day.
One of the big reason for me to use it so less is perhaps because among my contacts and with whom I have need to exchange money were not part of beta program, BUT STILL I think P2P transactions are overrated as a focus area.
Most of my transaction happens due to ecommerce (food delivery, online shopping and others such), offline buys (ex. grocery store payment using shopkeeper's QR Code), transactions using bank app (Ex. for big ticket items like monthly rents, regular payments like electricity, credit card bills), and things like quick bank balance check which is super convenient using Payment Apps like GooglePay and others.
WhatsApp payment experience is very bare bones, it just focuses on casual transactions among ones contacts - not on deep and broad payment experience in different domains as one encounters in real life.
Famous last words perhaps: WhatsApp payment feature would be yet another payment mechanism in an already crowded space, it would not make much difference to us user's life, UNLESS they focus on payment space very deeply and bring merchants, online commerce etc. into picture.
[+] [-] johannes1234321|5 years ago|reply
The long play: Once tourists are happy with it they go home and want to pay that way at home, too.
[+] [-] animal531|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sanmon3186|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blocked_again|5 years ago|reply
Ofcourse they will. They are not idiots. It's fucking Facebook we are talking here.
[+] [-] ffpip|5 years ago|reply
Phones are sold here with features like 'Runs Whatsapp'.
My grandmother doesn't know to operate the android keyboard. She uses whatsapp. It's that popular.
[+] [-] kumarvvr|5 years ago|reply
India has awesome apps for doing peer to peer payment.
UPI system allows you to create custom UPI id's, linked to your chosen Bank account (you can link more than 1 account, with 1 acc being the active one at any given time, switch between accounts, etc), you can create multiple ID's linked to different bank accounts, you can create hundreds of thousands of ID's to link to invoices, contracts, dates, times, etc. All it takes for a payment is for you to share the ID, or convert it into a QR code for scanning by the other party.
I don't see why WA would take 30% of market share.
Most money transfers are usually commerce related, rather than linked to your social network.
[+] [-] realshadow|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astatine|5 years ago|reply
The user experience was fantastic - easier than sending a camera pic or audio message. They had zero promotions during the beta period unlike everyone else who were offering tons of freebies, not just at initial launch but even till now. If this works (as I think it will) it will lay waste to the billions of dollars that GooglePay, PhonePe and Paytm threw around.
Wonder if that will make the others throw around more cash to retain users or if the market will switch to a more rational model where people are not being paid to pay.
[+] [-] dilawar|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perryizgr8|5 years ago|reply
https://english.jagran.com/technology/npci-announces-30-per-...
[+] [-] pritambarhate|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kumarvvr|5 years ago|reply
To send, you have to have a conversation going on in Whatsapp. That means adding that person to your contact list. This is problematic because, you deal with many unknown vendors over time. Using whatsapp to send payments would spam your contact list.
edit:
Also, this is using Unified Payments Interface (UPI). There are a lot of apps that have much better UI/UX & Value adds than WA. I use PayTM, in which, I scan a QR code with the UPI address, do the payment and be done with it. Very simple to use, no issue of confusion / sending money to wrong person, No known privacy issues, etc.
Also, It's not like a lot of people want to send money to their friends. Usually, it's business transactions.
It could work for off bank micro loans, provided there is an app for tracking and charging interest, etc.
[+] [-] metahost|5 years ago|reply
This is by WhatsApp, the company, itself.
[+] [-] swiley|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blocked_again|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rapsey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shi314|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robjan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsjq|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oefrha|5 years ago|reply
> Amazon is getting a late start, however, when it comes to P2P payments in India. Its rivals (Paytm, Google Pay and PhonePe) already support P2P, with Google Pay in the lead.
I wonder what differentiates this offering from WhatsApp? (I guess the majority of people already establish contact on WhatsApp?)
Also, given that India semi-recently blocked some entertainment apps on national security grounds (let's assume the stated intent for the sake of the argument), I wonder if anyone in the Indian government is alarmed that U.S. megacorps hold IMO much more precious keys to the financial security of their 1.4B population?
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/29/amazon-pay-launches-peer-t...
[+] [-] godelmachine|5 years ago|reply
While WhatsApp has done a brilliant job rolling this out, my only grievance is the WhatsApp UPI ID they have given. Mine’s something like 91xxxx.wa.efo@bankname. Life would be a lot easier if we get something like 91xxx@whatsapp. That would also enable me to pay directly via WA while shopping on Amazon/ Flipkart. Currently, I depend on PhonePe and PayTM to complete my online transactions using UPI. I understand the characters succeeding @ is mostly a bank name offering UPI platform but even taking that into consideration, a username like 91xxx.wa@bankname would be much more convenient.
PS - I know “wa” in my username stands for WhatsApp but have no idea about “efo”. If someone would kindly proffer a suggestion.
[+] [-] pascoej|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] achow|5 years ago|reply
So mine is 91xxxx.wa.5is@bankname as compared to your 91xxxx.wa.efo@bankname
[+] [-] pgt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scoundreller|5 years ago|reply
No Venmo or Square Cash here.
It’s funny since Square does Cash App dev in Toronto: https://jobs.smartrecruiters.com/Square/743999717607379-seni...
“Email Money Transfers” kinda work, but I can see a tech-forward alternative eating up 80-90% of that business. And I don’t think they plan on international business.
And as a “rich” country with a ton of immigrants, we probably have the most international remittances per capita.
[+] [-] aneutron|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notRobot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gprasanth|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] siddheshrane24|5 years ago|reply
Building features like splitwise, group payments etc would make them unbeatable in near future.
But the part that scares me the most are the various SCAMS that can take place, considering we're already dealing with UPI based payments scams which are happening round the clock.
[+] [-] artiszt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lota-putty|5 years ago|reply
Don't privatise charity & security; humanise it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BHIM#Security
[+] [-] mcraiha|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madspindel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Techasura|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anotherNae|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ak39|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ffpip|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] searchableguy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ptm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sreejithr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jitendrac|5 years ago|reply