.svg)
Meta’s push into India’s payments market has received a boost from a key regulator, after a longstanding user onboarding cap on WhatsApp Pay was removed with immediate effect.
On December 31, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) announced that WhatsApp Pay can now onboard users with no limit.
WhatsApp Pay is licensed as a third-party application provider (TPAP) by the NPCI, which allows it to operate as a payment aggregator and to participate in the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
The removal of the user onboarding cap means that WhatsApp Pay can now offer instant payments via UPI to WhatsApp's entire half a billion users in India.
WhatsApp Pay was launched in India in 2020, and has been subject to user successive onboarding caps imposed by the NPCI.
The caps have gradually been loosened over time, as WhatsApp Pay has demonstrated that it can cope with user onboarding demands while also maintaining regulatory compliance.
In 2020, the initial cap was set at 40m users, and in April 2022, it was raised to 100m.
Ram Rastogi, chair of India’s Fintech Association for Consumer Empowerment (FACE), said the removal of the user onboarding cap will allow WhatsApp Pay to compete with UPI’s largest players, such as PhonePe, Google Pay and Paytm.
“With over 500m WhatsApp users in India, this development could significantly increase UPI adoption across diverse demographics, including rural and semi-urban areas, where WhatsApp is a popular communication tool,” he said.
“By leveraging its massive user base, WhatsApp Pay can drive financial inclusion and expand the digital payments footprint in the country.”
UPI volume cap deadline extended
Also on December 31, the NPCI extended its deadline for compliance with a UPI volume cap by two years, pushing the deadline out until the end of 2026.
First announced in 2020, the UPI volume cap aims to prevent any single UPI monopolising India’s instant payments market.
It mandates that no single TPAP licence-holder shall initiate more than 30 percent of the total transaction processed via UPI in the preceding three months.
As of December 2024, according to NPCI data, PhonePe held a 48 percent share of total UPI transactions, Google Pay 37 percent and Paytm 7 percent.
