You may soon be able to transfer money through WhatsApp. According to a review by The Economic Times, the social messaging service is in talks with the State bank of India (SBI), the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) as well as other institutions to launch a peer-to-peer payments system. This system will reportedly be powered by the Indian government's Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
The report notes that WhatsApp is looking for different ways to integrate the payment system on its platform. A senior SBI official told the publication, “Due to the complexity of the architecture, WhatsApp is in discussions with the State Bank of India, NPCI and few other banks to devise ways to integrate their systems with the bank and with NPCI.” The report notes that WhatsApp will be used to identify the recipient, while UPI will allows the funds to be settled between the two parties.
This report comes just a few days after Hike launched its own mobile payments system called Hike Wallet. The service is also integrated with UPI and allows users to transfer money to a recipient's bank account.