NPCI doubles WhatsApp's UPI payment cap to 40mn users

Hyderabad NPCI has approved increasing the user cap for WhatsApp's payment service from the current 20 million to 40 million, this move could intensify competition in the digital payments space.

WhatsApp's messenger has over 400 million users in India and lifting the limit for the payment service at once could lead to extremely high transaction volumes on NPCI's platform.

WhatsApp has been pushing for an increase in user cap beyond the 20 million and that this was reviewed by NPCI, and the controlling body decided to increase this in a phased manner so that the payment system does not crash.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates the country's retail payment and settlement systems, had allowed WhatsApp to start payment services in November last year with a cap of 20 million users. The Meta-owned company was expected to disrupt the payments space with its large user base in the country, but it had not taken off in a big way.

Now, WhatsApp has decided to scale up and expand the payment service to include more users.

NPCI is considering increasing the cap in a phased manner because it cannot handle the huge volumes.