Abstract

On November 6, 2020, leading messaging app WhatsApp, owned by the US-based Facebook Inc., entered the digital payments ecosystem in India by launching its Unified Payment Interface (UPI) based mobile payment option, WhatsApp Pay. UPI has revolutionized the payment ecosystem in India with the interoperability feature that enables money transfer between different bank accounts. The UPI based ecosystem is dominated by Google Pay and PhonePe with a combined market share of 80%. WhatsApp entered the space with significant challenges in terms of restrictions on number of users and number of transactions. The present case study can be used to discuss the concept of UPIs, third party mobile applications, the digital payments ecosystem in India, and the Digital India Initiative.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Unified Payment Interface (UPI)
• Third party mobile payment apps
• Online payment system in India
• Digital India and financial inclusion

Keywords

WhatsApp Pay; WhatsApp; Unified Payment Interface; Digital Payments Ecosystem; National Payment Corporation of India; Third-party mobile apps; Digital India Initiative; Financial Inclusion; Google Pay; PhonePe; Digital Wallet