Podcast: WhatsApp Payments and its turf war with Paytm

Moneycontrol News

The messaging app on your mobile phone that you use most frequently, WhatsApp, is now getting into payment services.

Sometime in early June, WhatsApp will enter the field crowded with online payment services, going up against established players lie Paytm, Google’s Tez as well as others. I do not want to say plethora but it does apply in this case.

Besides Paytm and Tez, WhatsApp is taking on the govt’s own BHIM app, AEPS, USSD, online wallets like Freecharge, PhonePe, Mobikwik, PayU Money, Oxigen, Jio Money etc. Then there are those run by the banks themselves — like State Bank Buddy, ICICI Pockets, Citi Master Pass and another by HDFC bank. That is one crowded field. Entering and making a splash in a sector that offers low margins seems a strange move, at first look. So what is WhatsApp up to here?