In an effort to soothe flying tempers in the Indian fintech world over the proposed entry of chat messenger giant WhatsApp in digital payments space, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Friday in a statement said that WhatsApp Pay is still in the testing stage and the final product will play by the rules.
While waging an all-out war against WhatsApp Pay, founder of mobile wallet major Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, has alleged that Facebook, which owns WhatsApp is allegedly killing the “open UPI system with its custom close garden implementation”.
Sharma has alleged that the chat major is not following the mandatory two-factor authentication process to make mobile payments safe for consumer, as it does not require any password to log on to the app. The move might put Indian users at risk while they integrate their WhatsApp with bank accounts.
NPCI on Friday, however, said that it has given its consent to roll out to WhatsApp BHIM UPI beta launch with a limited user base of one million and low per transaction limit. “Four banks will join the multi-bank BHIM UPI model in phases (in the coming weeks) and full feature product shall be released after the beta test is successful. Multi-bank model offer advantages such as transaction load distribution between banks and helps to integrate popular apps easily with BHIM UPI,” it said in a statement.
It further said that broad principles for interoperability like the ability to send and receive money through any BHIM UPI ID, intent and collect call and read and generate BHIM / Bharat QR code are required in final BHIM UPI app. “BHIM UPI enabled app, which fulfils such principles only will be permissible for full-scale public launch. We work towards providing seamless experience to users of BHIM UPI platform and recognise the contribution of member banks and non-bank entities to reach this level,” it further said.
In the official statement, however, it did not talk about whether or not WhatsApp Pay will have two-factor authentication and will it send SMS alerts about every transaction. Paytm, which reacted to the statement, pointed this out.
“We welcome this statement by NPCI. It addresses the concerns of interoperability violation that we had raised. It also clarifies that the trial has been restricted to a million users, though we feel that a product with the stated violations could have been tried out amongst a much smaller base. We are still concerned that this statement is silent on the critical issue of safety of a financial transaction through UPI, where consumers need to mandatorily sign-in with username and password.
This violation is fundamental and very serious. WhatsApp must implement login and password like all other BHIM UPI apps. This statement is also silent on other issues such as the requirement to send SMS notifications for every UPI transaction,” Paytm said. However, sources at NPCI said that all these guidelines will be followed in the final product.
Sharma, on Thursday, told Business Standard that Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, is "one of the most evil companies in the world" that has been arm-twisting its users world over. “I completely believe that Facebook is the most evil companies in the world. They earlier tried to dupe the country with what they called was free internet. Now they are flouting all guidelines and rules and bringing out an app that does not need three-step authentication to make online and mobile payments,” Sharma alleged.
This is not the first time Facebook and Sharma have been at loggerheads. The Paytm founder was one of the main people who opposed Free Basics, Facebook’s internet for all plan for India.
While waging an all-out war against WhatsApp Pay, founder of mobile wallet major Paytm, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, has alleged that Facebook, which owns WhatsApp is allegedly killing the “open UPI system with its custom close garden implementation”.
Sharma has alleged that the chat major is not following the mandatory two-factor authentication process to make mobile payments safe for consumer, as it does not require any password to log on to the app. The move might put Indian users at risk while they integrate their WhatsApp with bank accounts.
NPCI on Friday, however, said that it has given its consent to roll out to WhatsApp BHIM UPI beta launch with a limited user base of one million and low per transaction limit. “Four banks will join the multi-bank BHIM UPI model in phases (in the coming weeks) and full feature product shall be released after the beta test is successful. Multi-bank model offer advantages such as transaction load distribution between banks and helps to integrate popular apps easily with BHIM UPI,” it said in a statement.
It further said that broad principles for interoperability like the ability to send and receive money through any BHIM UPI ID, intent and collect call and read and generate BHIM / Bharat QR code are required in final BHIM UPI app. “BHIM UPI enabled app, which fulfils such principles only will be permissible for full-scale public launch. We work towards providing seamless experience to users of BHIM UPI platform and recognise the contribution of member banks and non-bank entities to reach this level,” it further said.
In the official statement, however, it did not talk about whether or not WhatsApp Pay will have two-factor authentication and will it send SMS alerts about every transaction. Paytm, which reacted to the statement, pointed this out.
“We welcome this statement by NPCI. It addresses the concerns of interoperability violation that we had raised. It also clarifies that the trial has been restricted to a million users, though we feel that a product with the stated violations could have been tried out amongst a much smaller base. We are still concerned that this statement is silent on the critical issue of safety of a financial transaction through UPI, where consumers need to mandatorily sign-in with username and password.
This violation is fundamental and very serious. WhatsApp must implement login and password like all other BHIM UPI apps. This statement is also silent on other issues such as the requirement to send SMS notifications for every UPI transaction,” Paytm said. However, sources at NPCI said that all these guidelines will be followed in the final product.
Sharma, on Thursday, told Business Standard that Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, is "one of the most evil companies in the world" that has been arm-twisting its users world over. “I completely believe that Facebook is the most evil companies in the world. They earlier tried to dupe the country with what they called was free internet. Now they are flouting all guidelines and rules and bringing out an app that does not need three-step authentication to make online and mobile payments,” Sharma alleged.
This is not the first time Facebook and Sharma have been at loggerheads. The Paytm founder was one of the main people who opposed Free Basics, Facebook’s internet for all plan for India.
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