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In India and I have WhatsApp Payment enabled for more than a year (if I remember it right). I guess I was one of their early beta tester. While it is convenien
by achow 6y ago
In India and I have WhatsApp Payment enabled for more than a year (if I remember it right). I guess I was one of their early beta tester.
While it is convenient to send money to another person using WhatsApp but I have used it only few times in more than a year or so having it, even though on an avg' I do atleast couple of transactions a day.
One of the big reason for me to use it so less is perhaps because among my contacts and with whom I have need to exchange money were not part of beta program, BUT STILL I think P2P transactions are overrated as a focus area.
Most of my transaction happens due to ecommerce (food delivery, online shopping and others such), offline buys (ex. grocery store payment using shopkeeper's QR Code), transactions using bank app (Ex. for big ticket items like monthly rents, regular payments like electricity, credit card bills), and things like quick bank balance check which is super convenient using Payment Apps like GooglePay and others.
WhatsApp payment experience is very bare bones, it just focuses on casual transactions among ones contacts - not on deep and broad payment experience in different domains as one encounters in real life.
Famous last words perhaps: WhatsApp payment feature would be yet another payment mechanism in an already crowded space, it would not make much difference to us user's life, UNLESS they focus on payment space very deeply and bring merchants, online commerce etc. into picture.
- johannes1234321 6y agoI believe there is a big value in touristic areas, once they allow it globally. If tourists can pay easily without needing money exchange bevorhand this can increase spendings. Risk is that the app might show values in home currency, which makes total ripoffs more transparent (but can encourage with a "oh so cheap!") The long play: Once tourists are happy with it they go home and want to pay that way at home, too.
- antaviana 6y agoDo you want to give your personal phone number to anyone you buy something from?
- reidjs 6y agoDo you think there will be a way to pay anonymously?
- johannes1234321 6y agoWhether I am willing is secundary. I observed the impact of WhatsApp (without payment) in indonesia where free basics / internet.org made WhatsApp the ubiquitous communication channel for talking to the hostels landlord, the taxi driver, the restaurant, ... using anything else causes costs, which they wanted to avoid. If that now also handles the payment for the taxi or hotel or whatever it's the clear choice ... If I like it or not. For my agenda I'd rip Facebook apart. But that only counts a little in reality.
- blocked_again 6y ago> UNLESS they focus on payment space very deeply and bring merchants, online commerce etc. into picture. Ofcourse they will. They are not idiots. It's fucking Facebook we are talking here.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 6y agoTrue. Say or think what you want about them, they know how to build, deliver and maintain good end-to-end products. Google, otoh...
- sanmon3186 6y agoWhatsApp payment is step-1 of many, that would make jiomart the Indian super-app, like wechat.
- animal531 6y agoHere in Southern Africa using generic airtime that can be transferred around as a currency is quite big. I expect something like this would be a hit here.
- ejanus 6y agoSound more like tokens, cryptocurrencies. How popular is cryptocurrencies in your country?