New Delhi: Head of WhatsApp Payment in India, Manesh Mahatme, has quit the Meta-owned platform and is reportedly headed to Amazon where he previously worked.
Mahatme worked at WhatsApp Payment for nearly 18 months and according to Meta, he has played an important role in expanding the access to ‘payments on WhatsApp’ in India.
“We wish him every success for his future endeavours. Payments on WhatsApp is a priority for Meta and we will continue to innovate and drive momentum as part of our broader efforts to bring the ‘next 500 million Indians’ onto the digital payments’ ecosystem,” a Meta spokesperson told IANS on Thursday.
Mahatme had joined as Director and Head of WhatsApp Pay in April last year.
Prior to joining WhatsApp, he was a director and board member at Amazon Pay India for about seven years.
Late last year, the NPCI approved increasing the user cap for WhatsApp’s payment service from the current 20 million to 40 million users.
WhatsApp received the nod from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in April this year to expand the payment service to 100 million users.
WhatsApp India has made significant investments regarding digital payments on its platform across the country, to accelerate its growth in a market where adoption of unified payments interface (UPI)-based payments has exploded.
Mahatme recently told IANS that the Meta-owned company has introduced several India-specific features in payments on WhatsApp over the last few weeks and have seen exciting results.
“We believe that WhatsApp Pay can be a key partner to the NPCI and RBI as we all aim to scale adoption of UPI and financial inclusion to those most in need,” the top company executive had said.
The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) registered a record 6.57 billion (657 crore) transactions worth Rs 10.72 lakh crore in August, according to the NPCI data.
The growth in UPI volumes is up almost 100 per cent (year-on-year) and amounts transacted grew by 75 per cent YoY in the month of August.
The country crossed six billion transactions for the first time last month, logging 6.28 billion transactions worth Rs 10.62 lakh crore.
(IANS)
