According to two insiders, WhatsApp will roll out cashback awards in the coming weeks to entice more Indians to use its peer-to-peer payments service and is testing similar incentives for merchant payments as it competes with rivals such as Google.
The latest step comes just days after WhatsApp received regulatory approval to more than expand its payments service to 100 million users in India, the company’s largest country with over half a billion users.
According to people with direct knowledge of the company’s intentions, WhatsApp will introduce a payback offer of up to 33 Indian rupees ($0.40) for transactions users make on its payments service, which allows contacts to give each other money from within the messenger app, before the end of May.
In what one insider described as WhatsApp’s “user acquisition push,” the incentive, which would be spread across three transactions, will be granted regardless of the amount being transferred, even if it is as small as 1 Indian rupee.
The payback may appear insignificant, but Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Research, believes it will be a “compelling enough” reason for users to switch to WhatsApp.
“As an Indian, you won’t leave money on the table,” Shah remarked. WhatsApp stated in a statement in response to a Reuters enquiry that it is “conducting a campaign delivering cashback incentives to our users in a gradual approach as a means to unlock the potential of payments on WhatsApp.”
Separately, WhatsApp is piloting a programme in which users who pay highway tolls, electricity bills, and other bills directly from the app would receive cashback incentives, according to the two people.
The latest step comes just days after WhatsApp received regulatory approval to more than expand its payments service to 100 million users in India, the company’s largest country with over half a billion users.
