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A full-fledged rollout of WhatsApp Pay has not been approved for over two years due to concerns over its data storage policy in India and over sharing of that data with its parent entity. In February, a plan to allow WhatsApp Pay to increase the number of users in a pilot project, from 1 million to 10 million, did not take off.
“It was decided to allow WhatsApp for a partial rollout, but permission was not granted. NPCI just wanted to play it safe since a court case is still on and it wants to give the approval only after Whatsapp has met all the criteria and the Court’s permission,” an official, familiar with the details, told ET, requesting not to be named.
NPCI declined to comment.
“We are continuing to work with the government so that we can provide access to payments on WhatsApp to all of our users. Payments on WhatsApp will help accelerate digital payments and this is particularly important during Covid-19 as it is a safer way to transact for our 400 million users in India,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said.
In November, the Reserve Bank of India told the Supreme Court that it had directed NPCI to not allow WhatsApp Pay to be rolled out as the company had not fully complied with the data localisation norms the banking regulator had set for payment firms.
The Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC), a think tank, had filed an application before the apex court in February, seeking to stop the UPI-based payment pilot service of WhatsApp Pay and its planned escalation to 10 million users, arguing that the company had not met RBI norms. CASC had submitted in its plea that “WhatsApp Payment Services, in violation of RBI data localisation norms, is clandestinely continuing beta testing of its Payments Systems and further rolling out to more customers, despite adverse report of RBI to the Supreme Court,” its lawyer Virag Gupta told ET.
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