Zuckerberg: Government's nod awaited to start WhatsApp payment feature in India

Facing intense scrutiny in India over the spread of misinformation and fake news on WhatsApp its parent company Facebook has said it is waiting for a green signal from the government to roll out peertopeer payments feature for over 200 million users on the instant mobile messaging platformIn an earnings call with analysts after reporting its Q2 2018 results CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company has been testing the payment feature on WhatsApp in India for some timeIt gives people a really simply way to send money to each other and contribute to greater financial inclusion The feedback and usage have been strong All signs point to a lot of people wanting to use this when the government gives us the green light Zuckerberg saidEarlier this year WhatsApp launched a beta version of its Payments feature in India for nearly one million usersThe move set to give a tough competition to market leader Paytm evoked criticism from digital payment services who sought fair play claiming WhatsApp has customimplemented Unified Payments Interface UPI system which is not secure and flouts norms laid out by the National Payments Corporation of India NPCI that has developed the UPI systemPaytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma also demanded a levelplaying field for all UPIbased appsClearing the air on the issue of lack of fair play the NPCI in February said that the fullscale public launch of the feature will be permitted only after the Facebookowned platform meets all the required normsCurrently NPCI has given its consent to roll out WhatsApp BHIM UPI beta launch with limited user base of one million and low per transaction limit said the corporationFour banks will join the multibank BHIM UPI model in phases and full feature product shall be released after the beta test is successful the NPCI addedBeta testers in India found their WhatsApp interface displaying a large list of supported banks and they can see a payments feature appear in their WhatsApp Settings menuBut there was no news from WhatsApp after thatAccording to Zuckerberg who lost almost 17 billion within an hour after the company reported slow users growth in Q2 2018 weve broadened our focus to building this Payments feature for other countries so we can give more people this ability fasterHauled up this month by the Indian government on its failure to check the spread of fake and provocative content on its platform amid growing lynching episodes the Facebookowned platform on July 20 launched a test to limit message forwarding to five chats that will apply to its users in IndiaAt least 30 people have lost their lives by lynch mobs after rumours including that of child lifting triggered via messages on WhatsAppCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Except for the change in the headline the story has been provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE without any verification or editing from our side Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever