India is WhatsApp’s largest market, with over 500 million users, and the company is continuously working to expand its usefulness for Indian users. One of the latest features in development is bill payments directly within WhatsApp, allowing users to pay various bills without needing to use third-party services.
This new functionality was discovered through an APK teardown of WhatsApp’s latest beta version for Android. The feature will support payments for a wide range of bills, including electricity bills, mobile prepaid recharges, LPG gas payments, water bills, landline postpaid bills, and rent payments. While these are the categories listed in the code at present, it’s possible that the list of supported bill payments could expand as the feature evolves. It’s not yet clear when exactly this feature will launch, but it’s expected to be available within the next few months.
WhatsApp already allows users in India to send money to contacts and make payments to businesses via UPI, and this bill payment system will be an extension of that. The goal is to make WhatsApp a more integral part of daily life in India by offering more services within the app itself.
Recently, India’s National Payments Corporation lifted the cap on WhatsApp Pay’s user onboarding, which means that WhatsApp can now offer financial services to all of its 500+ million users in India. This makes the bill payment feature a key part of WhatsApp’s broader strategy to promote WhatsApp Pay and make it more widely adopted across the country.
As the feature continues to develop, users can expect more updates in the coming months, and if all goes as planned, the new bill payment functionality should be available soon. With this feature, WhatsApp aims to make financial services more accessible and convenient for users in India.
