PayU: WhatsApp Partnership Provides ‘Significant Leap’ for Indian Shoppers

Indian payments company PayU offered more details on its partnership with WhatsApp announced Wednesday (Sept. 20).

The Meta-owned messaging platform said Wednesday that it is bringing in-chat payments to India, home to its largest customer base.

In a news release Thursday (Sept. 21), PayU said the partnership will provide WhatsApp-enabled PayU merchants with access to the PayU Checkout platform, which lets customers use more than 150 payment options, including cards, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and net banking, directly within the WhatsApp platform, with no need for redirection.

All WhatsApp-enabled PayU merchants can employ this feature without additional setup or maintenance fees.

“We are thrilled to introduce that PayU will power payments within WhatsApp app, which is a significant leap in enhancing the shopping experience for both businesses and customers,” PayU India Chief Business Officer Sudhir Sehgal said in the release. “This will empower businesses to provide a wide range of payment options directly within the WhatsApp platform.”

WhatsApp has already rolled out similar payments programs in Brazil and Singapore, but India represents the greatest prize. The country is home to more than a billion people, and more than half a billion of them use WhatsApp.

It’s also a nation that is used to making mobile payments. PYMNTS Intelligence showed that consumers in India turn to digital wallets to pay for 55% of retail purchases.

“As one might expect, given India’s trailblazing nature, local consumers use more digital shopping features than their counterparts in the United States or the United Kingdom,” PYMNTS wrote in August. “India’s millennial, bridge millennial and Generation Z shoppers have been the country’s early adopters of these digital-first shopping experiences.”

PayU’s “Checkout Express” debuted earlier this month as part of its CommercePro stack, designed to help merchants deal with issues like cart abandonment and scalability troubles.

“This comprehensive toolkit, fueled by Indian innovation and technology built out of India, addresses real-world pain points with new avenues for success,” PayU Chief Product Officer Manas Mishra said at the time. “The CommercePro stack is a true testament to our commitment to simplifying digital payments, driving business efficiency, and offering real-world solutions to businesses across India.”