This Tuesday, May 4th, WhatsApp launched in Brazil the long-awaited WhatsApp Pay, a feature that allows users to send and receive payments with their contacts directly inside the chatting app’s conversations. Android and iOS users will be able to easily pay their friends and family, similar to the way they send photos, videos, and documents through the platform.
WhatsApp’s users can pay up to 1000 Brazilian reals and receive a maximum of twenty money transfers a day, with a monthly limit of 5000 Brazilian reals. No fees or charges are applied to payments carried out through the app.
Initially, the service is only available to clients of nine financial companies in Brazil – as you can see below – that own debit or pre-paid cards issued by Visa or MasterCard. According to operations director Matt Idema, the new feature will initially be offered to a small group of users in the country and will be gradually expanded to others. Idema has not specified the percentage of users that will be offered the feature as of today, or how long it will take for the service to reach all users.
So far, WhatsApp Pay is only available for personal accounts, and not business accounts. The feature was announced in June 2020 but was barred by the Central Bank of Brazil. WhatsApp was only able to obtain authorization for P2P (peer-to-peer) transactions in March 2021.
Payment services for business accounts are expected to occur this year, but the launch date has not yet been defined. The Central Bank of Brazil is still analyzing permissions for transactions between customers and businesses, such as credit card purchases via WhatsApp Business.
How to use WhatsApp Pay
WhatsApp Pay will gradually be made available to Visa and MasterCard users with debit cards or pre-paid cards issued by the following financial institutions:
- Banco do Brasil
- Banco Inter
- Bradesco
- Itaú
- Mercado Pago
- Next
- Nubank
- Sicredi
- Woop Sicredi
To make payments through WhatsApp Pay, simply click on the clip shown on the messaging area within the conversation and select the payment option. Users must register their cards to Facebook Pay, a payment platform integrated with WhatsApp. Check out WhatsApp’s step-by-step guide or watch the video below.
Is WhatsApp Pay safe?
To ensure the security of transactions, users will be able to use the Facebook Pay PIN or their smartphone’s biometrics to approve payments. The card data is protected by encryption, in accordance with the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) requirements and several additional layers of security. Understand why WhatsApp Pay is safe.
Brazil is a promising market for WhatsApp payments
It is estimated that, by 2025, the number of Brazilians using the messaging app will exceed 150 million, according to data from Statista.
This shows how Brazil is a promising market for WhatsApp payments. In January 2021, over 80% of the platform’s users in Brazil revealed they use the app daily, according to Mobile Time and Opinion Box.
No wonder Brazil is the second country in the world to receive WhatsApp’s new feature. In India, WhatsApp’s largest market, with over 547 million users, the country was able to obtain authorization to operate the platform’s financial services in November 2020.
Are you ready to pay with WhatsApp?
