Facebook-owned WhatsApp started testing UPI-based ‘WhatsApp Payments’ service back in 2018 in India and the expansion has been slow. Finally now, WhatsApp Payments service is now available for users and small businesses in Brazil, and this comes after Mark Zuckerberg announced earlier this year that the service will be rolled out to more countries in the next 6 months.
Using WhatsApp Payments, users will be able to send money or make a purchase from a local business right from the app securely. It is enabled by Facebook Pay and the company aims to make the experience seamless across Facebook’s family of apps in the future.
WhatsApp Payments if free to use for people, and a processing fee is levied for businesses. As of now, WhatsApp Payments in Brazil will support debit or credit cards from Banco do Brasil, Nubank, and Sicredi on the Visa and Mastercard networks. Further, the company is working with payments processor Cielo and is welcoming more partners to join in the future.
It has started rolling out to people across Brazil starting today and will be rolled out to everyone soon.
WhatsApp in a blog post said:
The over 10 million small and micro-businesses are the heartbeat of Brazil’s communities. It’s become second nature to send a zap to a business to get questions answered. Now in addition to viewing a store’s catalog, customers will be able to send payments for products as well. Making payments simple can help bring more businesses into the digital economy, opening up new opportunities for growth.