WhatsApp could soon support UPI based payments

India has become a hotbed for digital payment companies both local and global in the post-demonetization phase. Not just this, popular social networking platforms too are exploring the digital route to gain more traction.

Following in the footsteps of Sweden-based Truecaller that introduced user-to-user payments last week through a tie-in with ICICI Bank, WhatsApp too could enable payments between users using UPI within the next six months. According to a report in The Ken, WhatsApp is hiring a head of digital transactions specialising in UPI and Aadhaar payments which could be the beginning of a payments-enabled WhatsApp messaging service.

“India is an important country for WhatsApp, and we’re understanding how we can contribute more to the vision of Digital India. We’re exploring how we might work with companies that share this vision and continuing to listen closely to feedback from our users,” WhatsApp told TechCrunch in a statement.

Notably, on a visit to India in February, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton admitted that the company was “in the early stages” of looking into how it can incorporate payment services.

Though Facebook added payments to its Messenger app some time ago in the US, but such a feature inside WhatsApp could be far more transformative in India, given the platform's popularity and its humongous user base and could well prove a Jackpot for Facebook-owned WhatsApp.