The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has lifted the user cap on WhatsApp Pay, allowing the popular messaging platform to onboard its entire user base of over 500 million onto the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
In a release, the retail payments and settlement systems operator announced that the 100-million-user cap on WhatsApp Pay has been removed. This decision follows the gradual relaxation of restrictions on WhatsApp Pay since its first launch in 2020.
Initially limited to one million users, the cap was increased to 100 million in 2022 and has been completely removed.
Read the notification issued by NPCI.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has immediately removed the UPI user onboarding limit for WhatsApp Pay (a third-party app provider).
With this development, WhatsApp Pay can now extend UPI services to its entire user base in
India.
Previously, NPCI had permitted WhatsApp Pay to expand its UPI user base in a phased manner. With this notification, NPCI is removing the limit restrictions on user onboarding on WhatsApp Pay. WhatsApp Pay shall continue to comply with all UPI guidelines and circulars applicable to TPAPs.
WhatsApp Pay has struggled to gain traction in the competitive UPI market. In November, it processed 51 million transactions, compared to the 12 billion transactions of Google Pay and PhonePe. By November 2023, WhatsApp Pay had processed around 22 million transactions.
Meanwhile, NPPCI has delayed implementing market share caps for a popular digital payment method by two years. The move will benefit Google Pay and PhonePe. According to NPCI, the mandate, which was to take effect at the end of 2024, will kick in at the end of December 2026.
According to the first proposal, made in November 2020, digital payment firms are not be allowed to hold more than 30% share of the volume of transactions processed via UPI.
