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Por Munsif Vengattil e Aditya Kalra
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – In a few weeks, WhatsApp will launch cash rewards to lure more Indians to its transfer service and is testing similar incentives for payments for purchases, two sources said, as the company seeks to compete with rivals such as Google. .
WhatsApp will launch in May a refund offer of up to 33 Indian rupees ($0.40) for transfers users make on its payments service, which allows people to send each other from the messaging app, the sources said. , who have direct access to the company’s plans.
The incentive, divided into three transactions, will be given regardless of the amount to be transferred, even if it is just 1 Indian rupee, in what one source described as WhatsApp’s “user acquisition unit”.
WhatsApp’s refund amount might seem small, but Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Research, said it would be a “sufficiently compelling” reason for users to switch.
Separately, WhatsApp is testing a program where it will distribute refund incentives to users who pay tolls, utilities and other bills directly from the app, the two sources said.
WhatsApp also wants to test incentives for mobile payments to Reliance Jio, India’s biggest telecom operator, the sources said. Reliance is a partner of WhatsApp, whose owner Meta in 2020 invested 5.7 billion dollars in the digital arm of the Indian company.
WhatsApp did not comment on the plans, while Reliance did not respond to a request for comment.
WhatsApp competes with Alphabet’s Google Pay, Ant Group-backed Paytm and Walmart’s PhonePe in India’s competitive digital payments market.
(Reportagem de Munsif Vengattil e Aditya Kalra)
