WhatsApp is including pay as you go telephone recharges in India in a transfer to get extra customers to transact inside the app, even because it struggles to achieve significant floor in a funds market dominated by Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google Pay.
On Thursday, WhatsApp stated it’s partnering with fintech agency PayU to roll out pay as you go telephone recharges in India, permitting customers to prime up cell numbers for main operators together with Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone Concept instantly inside the messaging app. The function might be made accessible to all WhatsApp customers within the nation over the subsequent two weeks, PayU confirmed to TechCrunch.
Regardless of having more than 500 million users in India and launching payments in 2020, WhatsApp stays a marginal participant within the nation’s digital funds area, pushed by the government-backed Unified Funds Interface. The messaging app processed over 130 million transactions in March, in keeping with the latest statistics from the Nationwide Funds Company of India, far behind rivals akin to Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google Pay, which processed greater than 10.5 billion and seven.5 billion transactions, respectively, over the identical interval.
The hole has continued even after the NPCI lifted onboarding limits on WhatsApp Pay in late 2024, permitting the service to develop to its full consumer base in India after years of phased rollouts.
Nonetheless, WhatsApp’s funds utilization has picked up since early 2025, after onboarding restrictions had been lifted. Its UPI transactions greater than doubled from about 61 million in January 2025, per the NPCI information. Over the identical interval, Walmart-owned PhonePe and Google Pay grew by round 30% and 20%, respectively, whereas persevering with to account for almost all of UPI transaction volumes.
The newest rollout provides to WhatsApp’s broader push to develop funds and companies inside the app in India, the place customers can already pay payments, book metro tickets, and entry a variety of presidency companies via chat-based interfaces, because the Meta-owned firm seems to deepen engagement past messaging.
WhatsApp has additionally launched a rupee (₹) icon on its residence display screen to make it simpler for customers to entry the funds part, alongside options akin to cell recharges and peer-to-peer transfers.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026
Ravi Garg, director of enterprise messaging at Meta India, stated the updates are aimed toward making on a regular basis transactions easier inside WhatsApp as the corporate goals to deliver extra utility into the app.
The transfer highlights Meta’s push to deepen engagement past messaging, even because it continues to lag established digital cost gamers in driving transaction volumes.
If you buy via hyperlinks in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t have an effect on our editorial independence.
