WhatsApp inches closer to launch payment services
WhatsApp may soon launch its payment services in India after National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) informed the Reserve Bank of India that the Facebook owned messaging platform has met data localisation requirement. RBI in an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court said the NPCI informed the Central Bank that it was satisfied with the WhatsApp's compliance with the regulator's data storage rules, mentioning that the messaging service was good to go live with its payment services. WhatsApp will offer its new service under Unified Payment Interface, the Hindustan Times reported.
WhatsApp to launch Payment Services | What we know
- In June, National Payments Corporation informed Central Bank that it was satisfied with WhatsApp's complaince report.
- NPCI said we would like to confirm that WhatsApp has satisfied the data localisation requirement based on Cert-In auditor's reports and we hereby are giving ICICI Bank (Paymentt Service provider bank for WhatsApp) the approval to go live.
- National Payments Corporation said it will give approval to ICICI Bank to will provide its payment service.
- WhatsApp said that it was now awaiting for a formal approval from the NPCI to launch its payment services via UPI operations, live mint reported.
- The RBI rules define that payments data, information on payments or settlement transactions, customer data, among other information, has to be stored in India.
- Earlier, NPCI was advised to ensure that WhatsApp does not store any of the payment transaction data elements in hashed/de-identified/encrypted form in its systems outside India.
- NPCI had, through its letter dated January 7, said that they had received a letter from WhatsApp agreeing to complete all the pending issues by May 31, and requesting permission to go live.
- WhatsApp is currently offering its payment services on trial basis to some users.
