WhatsApp is edging towards super app status in India by targeting the convenience of utility payments.
WhatsApp has launched a new payments service in India, allowing users to pay household bills through the Meta-owned app.
As part of the service, users gain access to 22,722 billers across 30 categories, including electricity, gas, water, insurance, credit cards, loan repayments and FASTag, an electronic toll collection system in India.
Users can access bill payments by tapping the Indian rupee sign (₹) at the top of the WhatsApp home screen, where they can see previous payments, upcoming bills, manage accounts and select how they want to pay.
Arun Srinivas, Managing Director and Country Head at Meta India, said that the company wants paying a bill through the app to become as easy as sending a message.
“For millions of Indians, WhatsApp is already the simplest way to stay close to family and friends, talk to businesses, access citizen services, and buy everything from metro tickets to insurance, all without leaving the app,” he said.
“With Bill payments, we’re bringing that same simplicity to one of the most routine tasks in every household. No more juggling apps or tracking multiple due dates.”
According to the official release, the feature will be launched gradually across India and is expected to become available to all Android and iOS users in the near future.
How WhatsApp bill payments work
WhatsApp bill payments use Bharat Connect, formerly known as the Bharat Bill Payment System, which provides the network connecting customers, billers and payment providers.
When using the feature, customers select a bill category and provider before adding and confirming their account details. The app will find the bill amount and relevant information and the user can choose to pay through debit, credit card or Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India’s real-time mobile payment system.
In a bid to make paying bills as easy as sending a message, bills from providers that a user has used before through WhatsApp can appear on Payments Home and the service also allows multiple accounts to be managed under the same biller.
India’s next super app?
Meta hasn’t detailed plans to launch WhatsApp bill payments in other markets, making the feature exclusive to India. The country, which is the app’s biggest market, provides a strong foundation for expanding WhatsApp into a payments platform.
The company said WhatsApp is used in the country for tasks such as mobile phone recharges, metro ticket bookings and accessing government services through chatbots, making paying bills a natural extension.
Bharat Connect also hands Meta access to a large established bill payment network, removing the need for the company to build relationships with thousands of individual providers.
WhatsApp hasn’t been viewed as a trusted app in other countries, with the Central Bank of the UAE ordering all licensed financial institutions to stop using WhatsApp and other instant messaging platforms for financial services and customer communications earlier this year.
Paying for bills is an important part of becoming a super app, a feature that the likes of WeChat Pay and Alipay possess in China, which keeps users inside the app.
WeChat Pay has a similar origin story to WhatsApp, starting as Tencent‘s messaging platform before introducing payments in 2013 as a way to send money between contacts.
Adoption was slow until the digital red envelope campaign during Chinese New Year 2014, which saw millions of users link their bank accounts to send and receive gifts through the app.
India looks to be at the centre of WhatsApp’s super app ambitions. In June, Meta acquired a 20% stake in the Indian fintech CRED for $900m and brought in CRED founder Kunal Shah to lead WhatsApp, with plans to revamp WhatsApp Pay and enter lending and insurance.
