WhatsApp is one of the best platform for connecting with known as well as unknown people all over the world and is currently owned by Facebook Inc. This chat application provides an easier means of communicating and several other functionalities. Though in most of the cases, Whatsapp is mostly restricted among known connections as sharing of mobile number is necessary for connecting in WhatsApp and it is not preferred by most of the people. The popularity of WhatsApp is due to its amazing functionalities comprising of one to one chat, group chat, voice call, video call, sharing of documents, pictures, audios, videos, location and contact information. Thus it is a complete social platform within itself where users have their own profile, can change their profile pictures, can put texts and pictures as their status updates and can also look into the same for other users. It also provides the facility to snooze message updates from particular person or group and allow to block other users who are not comfortable. This has made WhatsApp one of the most popular social messaging application and it is now used by billions of users worldwide.  

WhatsApp is now all set to roll out its Payment services for all Indian users as early as by next week, after overcoming several obstacles since its first introduction of its beta version in February for limited users as a pilot project. India is gradually moving towards cashless transactions and the cashless transaction facility is currently provided by several platforms and WhatsApp will be a new and most popular addition among them. The WhatsApp payment feature will enable users to send and receive money through the chat application which is based on Unified Payments Interface or popularly known as UPI of the Government of India. The new payment services can be accessed from the Payment option under WhatsApp Settings. To enable the smooth operation and processing of its payment services, WhatsApp is partnering with four banks namely Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and State Bank of India. Though State Bank of India will join at later stages when the functionality is fully operational in its place so WhatsApp has decided to roll out its feature currently with the other three banks as there is very tough competition from its rivals. Currently the market of digital payment services in India is mainly captured by payment applications like Paytm, Phone Pe, Mobikwik and Google Tezz. But WhatsApp payment services which started with 1 million users in February in its beta version indicates that it will hit the market hard after its final launch and will threaten the market share of current popular payment service applications. The main reason behind this can be attributed to the social networking platform of WhatsApp beside its payment services which is currently not provided by any of the payment applications. The main delay in releasing the final version since the launch of its beta version is due to the time taken to obtain necessary clearances required as pointed out few months ago by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder of Paytm. He alleged that the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the governing and controlling body for retail payments and solutions in India, has allowed WhatsApp to operate its payment service without offering all the mandatory and regulatory features. The privacy policy of WhatsApp revealed that it was sharing all payment information with Facebook which violate the guidelines of NPCI for digital payment in India. Now with a clean cheat, WhatsApp is ready to roll out the payment feature for all Indian users by next week. The social networking platform combined with payment services for 200 million active users all over India will give a very tough competition to the already existing popular payment services as they all are lacking the social networking facility.