Now send money with Whatsapp!
Now send money with Whatsapp: WhatsApp is today one of the most widely used apps in the world; with nearly a billion people relying on the app to stay in touch with their family, friends and loved ones.
With the kind of lifestyle that the world is adapting, WhatsApp came as a boon and it’s almost like our life depends on the service now! This beautiful app came to our lives 8 years ago in 2009, was founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton in California, USA.
The best part of this free messenger is that it is absolutely free. And the new added features such as the voice call, video call, sharing unlimited pictures etc. just add to our cake.
Recently, WhatsApp announced that it will be preparing a new payments feature, exclusively for India. This news came soon after India experienced the demonetization wave and WhatsApp, in a way, announced the solution to our problems.
This will the first ever time that a messenger app would get into such a service and it is expected that this move will also lead to a whole new business streak in the country with a new way for businesses to sell in convenience and flexibility.
The app is currently working and advertising for its Digital Transactions Lead, even on its career page, a role that is based in India and would require a clear understanding of the nation, its people, the government, payment standards etc.
According to a recent report, WhatsApp intends to piggybank on the United Payment Interface (UPI) standard to introduce its first ever payment service in the country, for around its 200 million users!
It is also expected that the feature will also invite other brands and businesses on its new platform to chat with its customers and understand them better, on a whole new personal level. As per another report, however, WhatsApp, in some way has sort of delayed its plans. This is because the company is highly suspicious of spam and fraud.
The new version of the app will be called “WhatsApp for business” and it will be a whole new commercial version, entirely different from what the company is currently doing.
However, contrary to our expectations, this is not going to generate a lot of employment for the people.
As per the company’s plans, this feature is basically started to help very small businesses and is expected to employ not more than 10-15 people. Though the project has not been fairly implemented yet, the company is already set for its future expansion plans.
Acton, the co-founder of the app, in one of his interviews said that they have designed the new version exclusively for the Indian market and all the users are free to give them the required feedback on how to make the product better, post which they plan to take the product to Brazil and Indonesia.
In a separate interview, he also talked about his meeting with the technology minister of India, Mr. Ravi Shankar about the digital payments system in India and what WhatsApp plans to do in this regard. The Indian government anyways wants its citizens to move away from the cash transactions and therefore, the new technology is widely supported.
For the UPI system to work, the company will also have to get the banks involved in the function and some banks like SBI, ICICI, PNB have already shown interest and support.
Such a system is not only crucial to the customers but will also help WhatsApp strengthen its dominance in the market, competing with applications like Hike and Snapchat. This move can prove to be quite critical as Truecaller, an app that was mainly designed to filter out spam calls, is also planning to introduce a similar payment gateway system.
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