WhatsApp Payments finally launched, starting in Brazil

The most waited payment feature of WhatsApp is still under testing mode in India, however, it’s surprisingly available to the public in Brazil. The Facebook-owned messaging service announced today, making its users in Brazil the first ones to try the new feature of sending and receiving money from within the app.

The payment service in WhatsApp is based on the core of Facebook Pay, launched last year. The service will securely work with a six-digit PIN or fingerprint to complete the transactions.

According to the blog post by WhatsApp, the service will cost businesses a 3.99% processing fee to receive payments. The consumers, however, will use the service for free with no commission fee charged.

How does WhatsApp Payment service work?

The users will need to link their WhatsApp account to their Visa or Mastercard credit or debit or credit cards from local partners Banco do Brasil, Nubank and Sicredi for the service. With all that, WhatsApp will be using Cielo, a payments processor in Brazil, for transactions.

WhatsApp has also noted that it has built an “open model” that can work with more partners in future. That leads to the conclusion of how the service will work in India – where the service was supposed to be debuted but is still going through testing. Unlike Facebook Pay and Cielo in Brazil, the WhatsApp Payment service will use India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

The update has already been rolled out to users in Brazil. There is no news as of when the feature may be available to the users in other countries. India could be the second country to have the taste of it sooner or later if Facebook doesn’t have another surprise country in its list.