Zuckerberg vs Sharma: WhatsApp Pay can gobble up Paytm

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on April 24 that the company is actively working on to launch WhatsApp Pay in India the message was clear to the digital payments leader in the country Brace for the landfallThe countrys digital payments industry estimated to hit 1 trillion by 2023 is going to witness a seismic change this year with global players joining the bandwagon creating flutters among the existing players including Alibababacked Paytm which rules the marketAmazon just announced the launch of Amazon Pay UPI for Android customers in the peertopeer P2P transaction market Google Pay has also strengthened its presence over 45 million users with recording 81 billion in transactions at an annualised runrate in MarchApple Pay would also arrive and with the lowering of iPhone prices in India the service which has 390 million paid subscriptions globally and on track to reach 10 billion transactions would reach more handsWhatsApp Pay however is going to be the real game changer for a simple reason that it has the capability to become the top player in the Indian digital payments market with the word goWhatsApp currently has over 300 million users in India Facebook has another 300 million in the country and once it starts peertopeer P2P UPIbased payments service the sheer numbers will take it beyond Paytm which last reported over 230 million usersIndians love WhatsApp and will love the convenience of transacting through the app I foresee a trend wherein entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises start embracing and using WhatsApp Pay Prabhu Ram Head Industry Intelligence Group IIG CMR told IANSThis will contribute to and increase their creditworthiness In turn this trend will enable them to easily borrow credit from formal sources such as banks Ram addedPaytm Founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma is aware that fierce global competition is coming his way Sharma last year launched a Twitter attack on WhatsApps parent company FacebookAfter failing to win war against Indias open internet with cheap tricks of free basics Facebook is again in play Sharma had tweeted According to WhatsApp almost one million people tested WhatsApp Pay to send money to each other in a simple and secure wayIn response to Indias payments data circular weve built a system that stores paymentsrelated data locally in India a WhatsApp spokesperson had told IANSWhatsApp Payment is useful for people in their daily lives and we hope to expand the feature to all of India soon so we can contribute to the countrys financial inclusion goals the spokesperson addedThe company on May 3 told the Supreme Court that it would comply with the Reserve Bank of Indias RBI data localisation norms before launching the full payments service in the countryAccording to Pavel Naiya Senior Analyst Devices and Ecosystem at Hong Kongbased Counterpoint Research WhatsApp Pay will become an instant threat for products like Paytm Wallet and others who are using UPI as a method of transactionWith the huge user base WhatsApp Pay is already a good match to become a PeertoPeer P2P platform for realtime payment Naiya told IANS The entry of WhatApp Pay will give a significantly more positive and viral impetus to Indias digital economyThe rapid adoption of digital payments in India will be driven by WhatsApp riding on its vast user base and strong vernacular language focus added Ram Zuckerberg would finally merge all his platforms and the enormous user base would create a natural winnerIn Instagram and Facebook you have shopping and you have Marketplace and you have all the tens of millions of small businesses that use Pages and a lot use Instagram for sharing their inventory and being able to help people discover and pay the Facebook CEO told analysts during the earnings callAccording to Naiya with Facebook and Instagrams platform support WhatsApp Pay is likely to further extend beyond P2P platform to become a payment gateway for the companys social commerce in the futureThe die is cast It is only matter of time when the Indian digital payments market sees a new leaderCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates