WhatsApp adds Rupee symbol in chat composer for digital payments

Besides that, the composer's camera will now allow customers to scan any QR code to make payments at over 20 million stores around the country.

WhatsApp competes with Paytm, Google Pay, Walmart-owned PhonePe, and Amazon Pay in India, which is the company's largest market with over 400 million users.

WhatsApp announced that the Rupee symbol has been added to its chat composer, making it easier for Indian users to exchange payments over the messaging app.

In addition, the composer's camera will now allow customers to scan any QR code to make payments at over 20 million stores around the country.

Manesh Mahatme, WhatsApp India Director Payments, said at the Global FinTech Festival (GFF) 2021 that the business believes genuine inclusion is when clients don't have to navigate their way around their phone to make a payment.

"An arrival point is when payments just 'fits' into a customer's intrinsic behaviour. Hundreds of millions of customers send WhatsApp messages every day...We want to make sending money as easy and simplified as sending a message," he added. The distribution of the Rupee symbol (Rs) has commenced and will be available to users across India in the coming weeks.

WhatsApp began testing its UPI-based payments solution in India in 2018. While waiting for regulatory authorization, the testing was limited to approximately a million users.

WhatsApp announced in November of last year that it was bringing its payments services to India after gaining approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) had approved WhatsApp to launch its payments service in the country in a "graded" way, with a maximum registered user base of 20 million in UPI.

Asked about the 20 million cap, Mahatme said: "We are scaling up in a phased manner right now and we are partnering with NPCI to work through this scale".

"Our focus right now is to currently drive awareness of our payments to feature on WhatsApp and to build new use cases to transact. We will focus on these inputs, as we go forward," he added.