WhatsApp gets NPCI nod to expand UPI project: Report

Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has received the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to expand its pilot United Payment Interface (UPI) services to 10 million users, according to a report by The Economic Times quoting Nandan Nilekani.

Nilekani, the architect of unique identity database Aadhaar and UPI, shared the development while speaking at an IIT Industry Conclave event on Friday.

The pilot project - WhatsApp Pay - is designed to run on UPI that allows users to pay others or do business transactions through their bank accounts. Until now, WhatsApp Pay has been running for one million users after the project was rolled out in 2018.

DH independently could not verify the report.

With 400 million users in India using WhatsApp, its payment app will give competition to the likes of Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm.

While announcing Facebook's results, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company expects to roll out WhatsApp Pay in a number of countries, in the next six months.