META-owned WhatsApp on Wednesday announced its pilot program to adopt 500 villages in Karnataka and Maharashtra, aimed at empowering people with access to digital payments through ‘Pay on WhatsApp’. The company said that the objective of this program is to bring about a practical change in digital payments at the grassroots level.
Abhijeet Boss, WhatsApp Head of India said, “We believe that the ease of use and reliability of WhatsApp can drive the adoption of UPI with users including those at the bottom of the pyramid. We will continue to contribute meaningfully in this journey of educating the users at the grassroots level so that they can trust digital. Payments, as they gradually transition to a ‘cash-only’ way of financial life. The pilot named ‘Digital Payments Utsav’ began on 15 October at Kayathanhalli village in Mandya district of Karnataka, where villagers were introduced to various aspects of digital payments, including signing up for UPI, setting up a UPI account and using digital Security best practices included.
From village-grocery store to beauty-parlour and many others small and medium businesses are now accepting and receiving payments digitally using ‘Pay on WhatsApp’, the company said. Anil KR, owner of Poultry Farm, said, “Sometimes people don’t want to come to the shop, instead, they give me their list and location on WhatsApp and I order them. I ask them on WhatsApp.” I can even get paid.”
In addition, to push the digital access forward, WhatsApp recently added a rupee sign to its chat-composer. In addition, WhatsApp has equipped its main camera to scan QR codes, adding another layer of convenience for paid users on WhatsApp, thereby reaching 20 million QR-accepting stores in the country. be enabled. The company said it will continue to make significant investments in ‘Pay on WhatsApp’ over the next six months to drive its growth across India.