Latest news with #WhatsAppPay
Scroll.in
4 days ago
- Business
- Scroll.in
WhatsApp can't crack India's digital payments market
This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology's impact outside the West. Meta's fintech ambitions have failed to take off in India – the company's largest market, with over 500 million WhatsApp users. When WhatsApp first began testing payments in India back in 2018, local players braced for disruption. The app's massive reach – 400 million users at the time – raised fears it could wipe out competitors. But Indian regulators quickly stepped in, insisting WhatsApp store user data in the country and keep it separate from Facebook. The regulators also capped WhatsApp Pay's user base at just 1 million. The cap was gradually raised and then entirely lifted in December 2024. But rivals had cemented their leads by then. Six months on, the world's largest messaging app holds a speck in India's $3 trillion digital payments market. The market is dominated by Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google. Industry experts believe Meta's struggle is not only because of the regulatory hurdles. The company has not done much to support its growth and build user trust. 'Even after the cap was lifted, WhatsApp didn't do anything fundamentally different – no big product revamp, no cash-back play, no merchant push, no marketing blitz. It's like they have lost interest,' Deepak Abbot, co-founder of gold loan app Indiagold and former senior vice president of products at Indian fintech firm Paytm, told Rest of World. Between December 2024 and May 2025, WhatsApp Pay added just over 12 million transactions. In the same period, rivals Google Pay and PhonePe saw their transaction volume rise by nearly 700 million and 500 million, respectively, according to data from National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Google Pay and PhonePe together account for over 80% of transactions on UPI, the wildly popular government-built payment system. 'It wasn't simply a matter of delayed access – it was a matter of timing in a fast-moving ecosystem,' Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and CEO at Greyhound Research, told Rest of World. 'The platform's arrival came after critical foundational layers of trust, habit, and brand affinity had already been built by incumbent players.' According to Yugal Joshi, a partner at US-based management consulting firm Everest Group, WhatsApp lacks key features that make digital payments seamless – such as clear transaction tracking and user-facing rewards – while its rivals have built deeper engagement through robust app interfaces, merchant partnerships, and financial incentives like cash-backs and scratch cards. Brand perception is another barrier. Unlike established fintech brands, 'users may be hesitant to trust [WhatsApp] with financial transactions due to its primary association with messaging', Koppisetty Yasaswini Pujitha, banking analyst at GlobalData, told Rest of World. WhatsApp's only major push into digital payments came in July 2022 as Meta invested $5.7 billion in Reliance Jio, India's largest telecom firm, run by the country's richest man, Mukesh Ambani. The deal enabled Reliance's online grocery arm, JioMart, to launch a WhatsApp-based ordering service, advancing Meta's push into digital payments. The tie-up had 'a lot of potential', but Reliance Retail 'has not met its promise or potential,' and 'the WhatsApp Pay partnership is also taking a hit,' Jayanth Kolla, founder and partner at advisory firm Convergence Catalyst, told Rest of World. Underinvestment appears to be a recurring theme. The company pushed digital storefronts on Facebook and Instagram, but it 'hardly spent marketing dollars or bandwidth in even educating people about the [payments] feature,' Kolla said. WhatsApp Pay's international expansion has also largely fizzled. Outside India, it's available only in Brazil, where it lets users send money to peers and pay merchants. In Singapore, the service is limited to individuals making payments to registered businesses. Talks about Mexico and Indonesia launches, reported back in 2019, haven't yet materialized. The Indian government plans to limit payment apps to 30% of UPI-enabled transactions for fair competition, but earlier this year, the deadline for that move was extended to December 2026, giving WhatsApp more runway to grow without regulatory limits. The real barrier however isn't compliance but intent, according to Ankur Bisen, senior partner at Indian management consulting firm Technopak Advisors. 'QR codes, UI, all these things WhatsApp can also do. It's very easy. There's no big tech about these interventions, especially for a company like WhatsApp. But whether WhatsApp will want to do it or not, that's a key question,' Bisen said.
Time of India
02-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Downtime alert for HDFC Bank UPI services for July 2025: Dates and what will work and not
HDFC Bank has announced a scheduled maintenance which will temporarily disable its Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on two dates in November 2025. The maintenance windows are scheduled for July 3, 2025 to July 4, 2025. The essential system maintenance will begin at 11:45 PM on July 3 and will go on till July 4, 2025 at 1:15 AM. The downtime will be of 90 minutes. During these downtimes, customers will be unable to conduct any UPI transactions through multiple platforms, including HDFC Bank's MobileBanking app, Google Pay, WhatsApp Pay, Paytm, and other UPI apps having HDFC Bank account linked. The suspension affects both financial and non-financial transactions for HDFC Bank current and savings account holders, as well as RuPay Credit Card users. Merchants using HDFC Bank's UPI acquisition services will also experience a complete halt in UPI transaction processing during the maintenance periods. The bank has also asked the users to use PayZapp wallet for all their transactions during the scheduled downtime. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Adidas Three Shorts With 60% Discount, Limited Stock Available Original Adidas Shop Now Undo The scheduled maintenance aims to enhance the bank's digital banking services and improve overall system efficiency. While UPI services will be unavailable, other banking channels such as net banking, ATMs, and credit/debit card transactions are expected to function normally. "We appreciate your understanding and cooperation as we work to enhance the efficiency of our services. Thank you for your continued trust," HDFC Bank stated in its customer advisory. The bank expects services to resume immediately after the completion of each maintenance window. AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Indian Express
30-05-2025
- Indian Express
WhatsApp adds new features to make Status more creative and personal
Popular instant messaging app WhatsApp, on Friday, May 30, introduced some creative ways to help users express themselves through Status. WhatsApp Status is a highly personal space where users share their key moments with those who matter to them the most. Be it candid photos or sharing pictures from birthdays or anniversaries, the new features on Status have been designed to add some depth, creativity, and connection. WhatsApp is introducing features like layouts, music, photo stickers, 'Add Yours' prompts, etc. Layouts will help users turn up to six photos into a collage with easy-to-use editing tools. One simply needs to arrange the images exactly how they want to showcase them all in one frame. It is ideal for sharing a highlight reel of the day or event. Music posts allows you to create a status that revolves entirely around a song. Be it a tune that elevates one's mood or sets the tone for the day, users can make music the focus or use a music sticker to enhance their status update. With photo stickers, users can now turn any photo into a sticker and add it to their status. One can also resize, reshape, and position however they like to make their update unique. On the other hand, 'Add Yours' prompts can help you kickstart a conversation. Use the new Add Yours sticker on a photo to invite friends to share their views on your prompt. They can later add their response to their own status. WhatsApp has said that these features will begin rolling out soon and will become available to all WhatsApp users in the coming months. With these new features, WhatsApp Status is becoming richer and more engaging for users. As of 2024, India accounts for over 596 million monthly active users on WhatsApp, making it one of the largest markets for the messaging platform. The app's popularity is largely due to its user-friendly interface and support for multiple Indian languages. Over the years, the platform has become a cost-effective communication mode for both urban and rural users. Not just personal messaging, WhatsApp has emerged as a vital tool for businesses in India. Additionally, with its expansion into digital payments, WhatsApp Pay consolidates its role in the nation's digital ecosystem.
Forbes
29-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
M&A: Meta's Four Critical Acquisitions
If you still think of Meta (NASDAQ:META) as 'just the Facebook company,' you're missing the real story - a story written in billion-dollar deals, aggressive digital land-grabs, and a playbook of strategic domination that would make even the most ruthless CEOs blush. Over the past decade, four critical acquisitions didn't just help Meta survive - they catapulted it into an empire. Investors tend to be skeptical about acquisitions - but they aren't all bad, as Meta has shown. When done right, they have a purpose. They help expand, create moats, and in some cases, cripple the competition. Identifying such competitive advantages (or disadvantages) from acquisitions is one of the lenses we apply in High-Quality portfolio, which has outperformed the S&P 500 and achieved returns greater than 91% since inception. Let's break down the four game-changers that made Meta the beast it is today. Imagine buying a scrappy photo-sharing app with few million users and turning it into a massive business. That's exactly what Meta (then Facebook) did when it scooped up Instagram for what now looks like a "modest" $1 billion in 2012. Fast forward to 2025 and Instagram's share of Meta's revenue could exceed 50% in 2025. Yes, you read that right! That would mean nearly $80-90 billion in revenue from Instagram ads. Assuming net margin of 30% (Meta overall has 35%+) and a modest PE multiple of 20x, Instagram alone is worth $500 billion. That's bigger than most S&P 500 cash rich giants! $19 billion sounded insane at the time. But Meta wasn't buying WhatsApp for its revenues - it was buying scale, reach and relevance in every corner of the globe. WhatsApp has nearly 3 billion monthly unique users. While it is far from Instagram-level monetization, WhatsApp is positioning itself as Meta's "super app" for payments, e-commerce, and business messaging. There are estimates of 'business messaging' itself having revenue potential of $30-$40 billion. India is home to the largest WhatsApp user base of nearly 500 million. The government of India removed 100 million user cap for WhatsApp Pay at the end of 2024 - opening the digital payment market to more competition, which is currently dominated by Google Pay and PhonPe. When Meta acquired Oculus VR in 2014, people thought Zuckerberg had lost his mind. (VR headsets? Really?) But Oculus wasn't just a tech toy - it was the first brick in Zuckerberg's ambitious vision for the "metaverse," a concept Meta has been pouring over $10 billion per year into developing. Oculus, now rebranded as Meta Quest, dominates the consumer VR market - with over 70% unit market share globally. While still a small fraction of Meta's total revenue, the growth of the VR market is explosive. According to IDC, the global AR/VR headset unit sales could more than triple by 2028. If Instagram was about photos, and WhatsApp about messages, CTRL-Labs was about the future of how we even interact with technology. Meta quietly picked up this brain-computer interface startup for a rumored $500 million to $1 billion, and it could end up being one of its most profound investments. CTRL-Labs' technology is still in the experimental stage, but it's part of Meta's larger vision for the metaverse and augmented reality. Meta has integrated CTRL-Labs into its Reality Labs division, where it's exploring how brain-computer interfaces could revolutionize VR/AR interaction and eventually lead to neural-driven devices. As Meta continues to invest in CTRL-Labs' neural interface technology, the integration of this system into VR headsets and AR glasses could redefine user interaction. When people criticize Meta for its massive spending sprees, they miss the forest for the trees. These four deals - Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and CTRL-Labs - aren't just acquisitions. They're foundations. Each one secured Meta's dominance in a critical arena: social media, global communications, virtual reality, and human-machine interaction. Does it make you want to buy and hold on to Meta stock? Well that wouldn't be the worst idea. But here is the thing - going all-in in a single stock - no matter how good - is a recipe for disaster. Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio is designed to diversify stock-specific while providing exposure to the upside. With a collection of 30 stocks, it has a track record of comfortably outperforming the S&P 500 over the last 4-year period. Why is that? As a group, HQ Portfolio stocks provided better returns with less risk versus the benchmark index; less of a roller-coaster ride as evident in HQ Portfolio performance metrics.
