WhatsApp’s Payment feature spotted in beta

Popular messaging platform, WhatsApp recently submitted a new update to its app through the Google Play Beta Program: the version is 2.17.295. The update comes with a hidden page in the app for the heavily-speculated payment feature, according to blog website WABetaInfo. On the basis of the image shared by WABetaInfo, it can also be understood that the Facebook-owned chatting platform will now allow bank to bank transfer using UPI (Unified Payment Interface), which essentially functions on the Aadhaar infrastructure. Moreover, since UPI works on IMPS protocol, the transactions will be instantaneous.

Several reports regarding WhatsApp’s plans to integrate the payments feature towards the end of this year, have been taking the rounds since a long time. In fact, the company even posted a job opening for a payments expert in the company’s job listing section a couple of months back. Although, WhatsApp’s competitors such as WeChat and Hike Messenger already support payment services; the former has over 200 million active users and since it already is working on a separate Business app, where small business owners can get in touch with their customers, the digital payments in India will be receiving a big push.

WhatsApp also recently updated its app, especially with regards to how it syncs the user’s contact list. For example, a verified business contact will automatically be saved in the database. The company has also begun work on a better ‘Storage Manager,’ which provides detailed information about the contents in any given conversation. This is supposed to help users delete/preserve specific types of data in a given conversation.