WhatsApp has appointed former Amazon executive Maneesh Mahatme as India’s Head of Payments Business in India. Once Manesh gets this responsibility, he will focus on further improving the payments experience for the users.
In addition, he will work on promoting WhatsApp’s digital and financial vision in India, the statement said. Manesh Mahatme has over 17 years of experience in digital financial services and payments like Citibank, Airtel Money, and Amazon.
Manesh has joined WhatsApp hereafter Amazon. He has spent 7 long years as a director and board member in Amazon Pay India. During this time, he led the product, engineering, and growth teams. Abhijit Bose, head of WhatsApp India, said that he is very excited to have Manesh coming to WhatsApp.
He further said that Manesh had been a critical innovator for digital payments growth in India. They have done a great job in this, and we will use their experience to promote payments and sales to WhatsApp. He further said that WhatsApp has immense potential to accelerate India’s efforts to digitally empower all sections of people and promote financial inclusion through UPI and digital payments.
Tested in 2018
In 2018, the Facebook-owned company began testing its UPI-based payment service in India, allowing users to use the messaging platform to send and receive money. However, the test was limited to around one million users as it awaits regulatory approval.
In November last year, WhatsApp received approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) to roll out its payments service in a “graded” manner, starting with UPI with a maximum registered user base of 20 million.
Manish is excited
WhatsApp competes directly with fintech companies such as Paytm, Google Pay, Walmart-owned PhonePe, and Amazon Pay in India. According to statistics, there are 53 crore WhatsApp users in India. Mahatme said that WhatsApp Payments had been positioned as an essential partner in the country’s development agenda to make digital payments accessible to users across India. “I am extremely excited to be a part of this growth story,” said Maneesh Mahatme.
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