How to Use WhatsApp Payments on Your Android Smartphone in India

You are reading a story from PhoneRadar.

After being in the rumors for the last few months, Facebook-owned WhatsApp has finally launched the Whatsapp Payments service. Just like WhatsApp Business, the Whatsapp Payments is also limited only to the Indian users. As rumors suggested, the WhatsApp Payments is based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). With the UPI, the transactions can be made instantly between any two UPI accounts.

While WhatsApp is new to the payments service, other instant messaging apps like WeChat and Line already became popular in the payments space with the WeChat Pay and Line Pay respectively. The Hike Messenger is the first instant messaging app to make use of UPI for integrating payment services. WhatsApp currently has more than 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide. With 200 million monthly active users, India is the largest market for WhatsApp.

We expect the immense popularity of the Facebook-owned company will make it one of the major players in the payments field in very short duration. As of now, the WhatsApp Payments is missing the QR-based payments options. However, we might see full-fledged WhatApp Pay by the times it comes out of beta.

How to Get WhatsApp Payments Option On Your Android Smartphone?

• Firstly, you need to know that this feature is currently limited only to beta testers of WhatsApp Messenger for Android. We can expect the WhatsApp Pay to be made public with the coming updates.
• You need have the WhatsApp for Android app with the version 2.18.43 or later. If you are not the beta tester, you still get the WhatsApp Payment feature by the downloading and installing the latest WhatsApp apk file from here.

• Once installed, the “Payment” option can be found in the attachments option within the chats. Earlier to this, we used to see the option for Camera instead of Payment.

• Alternatively, you can find the “Payments” option in the settings of your WhatsApp app.

How to Create UPI Account to Use with WhatsApp Payments?

• You need to have a mobile number with the country code as +91 (for India) and also a bank account linked with the same mobile number to be eligible for using WhatsApp payments.
• To create a virtual payment address for making payments, you need to first accept the Terms and Privacy Policy of WhatsApp Payments service.
• Now, WhatsApp will verify your mobile number by sending an SMS.

• You can select the bank which was linked to your verified mobile number. Once selected, you will be shown the account with last four digits of your account number and full name.
• Tap on the account, to complete the WhatsApp Payments setup.

How to Add More Bank Accounts in WhatsApp Payments?

• Open the settings of your WhatsApp and tap on Payments.

• Here, you will get the option to add a new account.
• From now on, you need to repeat the same process as above.

How to Remove Bank Account (s) from WhatsApp Payments?

• Open the settings of your WhatsApp and tap on Payments.
• Here, you will find all the previously added bak accounts.

• Tap on the bank account you want to remove from WhatsApp.

• Now, select the “Remove bank account” option to delete that particular bank account.

How to Make QR-based Payments Through WhatsApp Payments?

• As of now, there is no option for scanning the QR codes within the app for making payments. We will be updating once the company integrates the QR-based payment option.

How to Pay (or Send) non-WhatsApp UPI Accounts using WhatsApp Payments?

• Though the QR-based payment option is not available in the beta stage, the company, however, added the option to make payments outside of WhatsApp by manually entering the UPI address.
• Tap on the Payments option in the WhatsApp settings and choose the account you need to make the payments with.

• Now, tap on the three-dot menu button at the top right side corner and select “Pay using UPI ID.”
• Here you can manually add any UPI ID to make the payment.
• Verify the account and enter the amount to be sent.

• Now, you have to enter the UPI PIN to authorize the payment.

As of now, the WhatsApp Payments is still a half-baked service and can get only better from here. While the WhatsApp users can send money to all the UPI users, they can only receive from other WhatsApp users. We don’t have much to complain as it is still in the beta stage. We will be updating the information once the WhatsApp Pay gets a full-fledged rollout. Stay tuned on Phone Radar for more details.

This story appeared first on PhoneRadar. Join the PhoneRadar Forums to discuss, meet experts & share your experiences. We have now launched a Hindi Website for the latest news in Hindi. Click here to read PhoneRadar Hindi