Here’s Why WhatsApp Pay May Not Go Live In India

WhatsApp Pay is a long-awaited feature and one of the controversial ones that might most likely not arrive in India. While this feature has been facing a lot of delays, a new report reveals that the WhatsApp Pay service might not be launched in India at all.

Apparently, the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) has sent a letter to the Supreme Court. It is said that this letter states that WhatsApp Pay does not comply with the data localization norms followed in India. A report by Times of India reveals that RBI has contacted NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) to not permit WhatsApp to deploy its payment service in the country.

For the uninitiated, NPCI handles the retail payments sector via UPI (Unified Payments Interface) in India. Following the letter, the Supreme Court has prompted RBI to provide an update on the status of the data localization compliance of WhatsApp.

No WhatsApp Pay Service!

This is definitely bad news for WhatsApp as it cannot make use of the flourishing UPI platform in the country right now. As of now, the monthly UPI transactions have crossed one billion. Given that India is one of the largest markets for WhatsApp, the failure to launch its payment service in the country will be a backlash for it.

Why WhatsApp Pay Cannot Be Used!

Well, WhatsApp has been facing several issues since the rollout of the UPI-based payment service last year to select beta users. The RBI issued a prompt asking WhatsApp to store the payment-related data within India. And, Facebook, which owns WhatsApp has been trying to do the same. However, it seems that there is no progress and RBI couldn't wait any longer.

As of now, Facebook's instant messaging platform is storing payment-related data outside of India, which RBI doesn't prefer. The reason behind RBI's opposition for this is that sensitive information such as transaction ID, reference number, application logs, emails, screenshots, etc. are stored outside of India with the WhatsApp support team and will be available for 90 days.

Eventually, WhatsApp Pay cannot go live in India if these requirements of RBI are not met.