WhatsApp rolls out payment features after Central Bank’s approval
Meta has started rolling out its payment tools to small and medium-sized firms through its WhatsApp messaging platform following the approval of Brazil’s Central Bank.
Reports said that Brazil authorized the launch of the WhatsApp payment feature weeks ago.
On Tuesday, Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg announced the development saying; “Whatsapp payments are coming to Brazil starting today.”
With WhatsApp Payments, money is transferred securely between bank accounts in Brazil. The payments feature on WhatsApp is enabled by Meta Pay.
On March 3, Reuters had reported that Brazil central bank had greenlighted Meta’s WhatsApp merchant payment system
The news agency said that Brazil’s central bank on had approved Meta Platforms’ (META.O) payments launch for small and medium-sized business in Brazil via its messaging application WhatsApp, building on the app’s existing local peer-to-peer payment system.
The approval, it said, came as “Meta seeks to use the Brazilian market as a key test space for business messaging, an area that has assumed greater urgency as Meta’s core advertising business has stalled.”
WhatsApp users in Brazil have been able to make payments between users through the application since 2021, but the new development clears the way for merchants to receive payments, the report said.
“Soon, WhatsApp users will be able to pay for products and services directly in a conversation with Mastercard and Visa debit and credit cards,” Guilherme Horn, head of WhatsApp Latin America, said in a Linkedin post.
Shortly after the central bank’s greenlight, Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on his Instagram broadcast channel that “people will be able to pay small businesses right on WhatsApp”.
