WhatsApp Pay to see more users now: Know why

WhatsApp Pay could now gain the same popularity as the Paytm and PhonePe. The Meta owned messenger service has won the regulatory approval to double the number of users on its payments service in India. Hence, instead of the initial 20 million users, WhatsApp can now host 40 million users for its WhatsApp Pay service.

Bound by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) regulations, WhatsApp Pay could only host 20 million users. However, the company had requested the regulatory body to left the cap entirely. NPCI has only allowed WhatsApp to double its user base to 40 million for now.

WhatsApp Pay to now see more users

WhatsApp Pay was announced last year in India as a means to make UPI based payments directly from the WhatsApp app. The feature was brought in to make sending money to friend and family easily. The service had initially struggled to take off but over the time, it gained traction.

A Reuters report quotes an insider who states that WhatsApp Pay has reached its 20 million user base already. Hence, the company demanded an extension of its user base allowance, which the NPCI has now allowed. WhatsApp currently has over 500 million active users in India alone.

However, it is unknown as to when the user base expansions will be granted. Neither WhatsApp, nor the NPCI has commented on this so far.

WhatsApp continues to add more features every few months to make the texting experience better. Recently, it added the ability to join a group video chat in any WhatsApp group directly. The app also received a couple of design updates, including some tweaks to the floating windows for picture-in-picture feature.

One of the many upcoming updates to WhatsApp is the extension of the message deletion time limit. Earlier, you could only do it within 1 hour, 8 minutes and 16 seconds. WhatsApp is now planning to extend it up to 7 days. WhatsApp is also working to bring message reaction in a similar fashion to Facebook Messenger and Instagram DM.