To give you some context, WhatsApp was trying to get into the digital payments sector for a long time. Sometimes it was something to do with the security, other times it was just that the government didn’t approve. But recently, WhatsApp UPI has made its way to every user and in this article, we are going to give you the ultimate guide for WhatsApp UPI. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) maintains the multibank Unified Payments Interface (UPI) that is used for doing transactions online. NPCI said in a statement that WhatsApp can now go live and authenticate UPI services on their platform. WhatsApp said in a statement, “This secure payment experience makes transferring money just as easy as sending a message.” “People can safely send money to a family member or share the cost of goods from a distance without having to exchange cash in person or going to a local bank,” they added further.
What is UPI?
UPI (Unified Payments Interface) is an instant money transferring platform developed by NPCI (National Corporations of India). It is a mobile application, used for instant real-time fund transferring between two banks. The money will be directly debited from the sender’s account and instantly credited to the recipient’s account. You can transfer money immediately by using VPA (Virtual payment address) associated with your UPI ID and linked to your bank account. The complete process is automatized, fast, reliable, and most importantly safe.
Features of UPI apps
UPI apps have some general features and we should know about them, some of them are
Digital Wallet: Digital Wallet is a UPI service that provides convenience to add money into your wallet through which you can finish online transactions.Ease in Money transferring: UPI services provide us ease in transferring money in seconds. You can send and receive money to and from bank accounts, respectively.Bill Splitting: With the new UPI service, you can split the money equally without any hassle of counting and billing. let suppose you went for dinner with your friends, so you can easily split the money and pay your piece without being dissatisfied.Instant Real-Time Based service: For UPI it doesn’t matter whether it is day or night you can transfer money on a real-time basis, anytime anywhere.Bill Payment and Mobile Recharge: You can complete your Mobile recharges and pay bills (e.g. Electricity bill, Water bill, subscription to any premium service, etc) in a few seconds.Single app for Multiple Banks: A single UPI app can be used for multiple banks, i.e. if you have multiple bank accounts so you can add all accounts into a single UPI app, don’t worry about installing and using different apps for different bank accounts.Easy to use and a clean user interface.Free: Till now all the UPI services are free throughout the country (India). You don’t have to pay for using UPI service, and your bank can’t deduct money for this.
Why WhatsApp UPI can be the Next Big Thing?
WhatsApp is one of the most popular, and widely used messaging app in India. Talking about competition, its biggest potential rival is Telegram which has over 500 million downloads and doesn’t really compare that well to WhatsApp’s whopping 5 billion-plus downloads on the Google Play Store only. Now that we have established that WhatsApp doesn’t have any real threats in terms of rivals messaging apps taking over, it makes it the number one messaging app in India. You see the above method involves a lot of steps and it’s a bit of hassle. Wouldn’t it be good if you could just have the transaction process, details, and everything within a single app, which is within WhatsApp only? It will be really great and that is what WhatsApp UPI brings to the table. People who operate small businesses on WhatsApp know the screenshots and payment details of any sale or purchase are often time too stressful to handle so it is much easier to do it all in one place. Establish the talks, come to a conclusion, make a payment, at all one place. With WhatsApp UPI you can do that very easily in one place. Your chats, talks, requests for money, transaction details, are all going to be in one place.
Ultimate Guide for WhatsApp UPI: How to Set it Up and Use it
To use WhatsApp UPI, you need a bank account (very obvious) and a debit card in India. For the payment process, WhatsApp will be sending instructions to banks (also known as payment service providers), that it will initiate a payment via UPI between the sender and receiver bank accounts. And with this, you can send money to anyone using a UPI supported app.
Setting Up WhatsApp UPI
Make sure that you have your WhatsApp updated to the latest version.Make sure that you have the same phone number for your WhatsApp account that is registered to the bank.
Once your WhatsApp is updated to the latest version, follow the steps below: Step 1: Open WhatsApp and tap on the three-dots at the top-right. Step 2: In the menu, you will find ‘Payments’, tap on it. Step 3: Now you will have to set up your UPI, tap on ‘Add payment method’. Step 4: You will see a message with Terms and Privacy Policy and all, tap on ‘ACCEPT AND CONTINUE’. Step 5: Now you will see a list of banks, select the bank for which you want to set up the UPI. Note: It is important to note that a lot of banks have been merged together and a lot of them are dissolved into other banks. So if your bank is dissolved into another bank you have to select the bank in which your old bank has been dissolved. For example, Syndicate Bank has been merged into Canara Bank. So if you have an account in Syndicate Bank, then you will have to select Canara Bank. Step 5: Upon selecting the bank, you will see a new window asking you to verify your phone number, tap on ‘VERIFY VIA SMS’. It might ask for permissions to read messages, allow it, and wait for verification. Step 6: Now you will see the account details and all the other stuff, select the account you want for the UPI and wait for the process to be completed. Step 7: Now you will see a message reading, “Setup complete”, tap on ‘DONE’. You shall now be seeing your UPI profile on WhatsApp which will have your UPI ID. If you already have a UPI ID linked to the particular account and phone number, your UPI PIN will be the same as the previous app. Now you can send money directly to any UPI ID, all you have to do is go to ‘Payments’ and tap on ‘New Payment’ on the bottom-right. You will see the option to send money to any UPI ID on top. Tap on it, enter the UPI ID, verify, and send the money.
Sending Money via WhatsApp UPI
Step 1: Open the chat of the person to whom you want to send money. Step 2: Tap on the attachments icon next to where you type messages. Step 3: You will see the option on ‘Payment’, tap on it. Step 4: Now enter the amount you want to send. You can also add a note, and tap on the send icon. Step 5: Now you will see the option to “Enter your UPI PIN”. As mentioned earlier, if you have already registered this account on some other UPI app, you will already have a UPI PIN, tap on ‘ENTER UPI PIN’. If you have not registered the account somewhere else, you will be asked to set up your UPI PIN, you can easily set up a 6-digit UPI PIN. Step 6: Once you have entered your UPI PIN, tap on the tick icon on the right side, and wait for your transaction to be completed. That’s it and you are all set.
Requesting Money via WhatsApp UPI
Interestingly, you can also request for money. Here is how to do it: Step 1: Open the chat of the person from whom you want the money. Step 2: Tap on the attachments icon next to where you type messages. Step 3: Tap on ‘Payment’. Step 4: You will see a ‘REQUEST’ option next to ‘PAY’, tap on it. Step 5: Enter the amount you want to request, you can also add a note, and hit the send button. The request message will be sent and once the person on the other side approves your request, you will get a confirmation message. Make sure that you ask the other person to approve the request before 6 days otherwise the payment request will expire. So that was all about the ultimate guide for WhatsApp UPI. One of the biggest issues you can face while setting up the UPI ID on WhatsApp will be your phone number; I can’t stress enough that make sure that the phone number is the same for both your bank account and WhatsApp account. Try setting up your UPI ID on WhatsApp and feel free to contact us in case you face any problems.
