Facebook has launched its WhatsApp payments service in Brazil, enabling people to send money and make purchases from within the chat app. You use it by linking up your WhatsApp account to your Visa or Mastercard credit or debit card.
This now adds Facebook as one of the digital payments and mobile money providers like Mpesa
WhatsApp began testing P2P payments in India in 2018 but Brazil, where the messaging service has 120 million users, becomes the first country to get a nationwide rollout. Brazil would be the first to be able to send and receive money by way of its messaging app, using Facebook Pay, the payments service WhatsApp owner Facebook launched last year
In a Facebook post, Marc Zuckerberg says: “We’re making sending and receiving money as easy as sharing photos.”
People can send money to contacts without leaving their chat and also make payments for products to small businesses. WhatsApp says in its blog post that the payments service — which currently is free for consumers to use (that is, no commission fee taken) but businesses pay a 3.99% processing fee to receive payments — will work by way of a six-digit PIN or fingerprint to complete transactions.
The service uses Facebook Pay, which was introduced last year to help consolidate payments services across the social media giant’s various platforms.
