Amitabh Kant, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), NITI Aayog, on Thursday said that WhatsApp has been “slow” with regulatory commitments with regard to its payments service.
“We are looking forward to WhatsApp. It is just that WhatsApp has been very slow in availing all the regulatory freedom. Fulfilling that. So that WhatsApp can really drive digital payments in India,” Kant said. He was speaking at an event where NITI Aayog and WhatsApp announced a partnership to promote women entrepreneurs in the country.
Will Cathcart, Global Head, Whatsapp, said that the company is looking forward to expanding the payment service.
When BusinessLine reached out to WhatsApp officials over Kant’s statement, no new comments on compliance were forthcoming.
WhatsApp’s payments service is available to select users on the platform as part of its trial run. The popular messaging app’s payment service had faced impediments in the form of data storage compliance aspects. In May 2019, the Supreme Court had said that WhatsApp’s payment trial run cannot go on indefinitely. WhatsApp had said that the trial run would be over by July.
BusinessLine has confirmed that the payment service is still live for some users.