WhatsApp has won regulatory approval in India to more than treble the number of people who use its payments service.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has certified another 60 million WhatsApp users via UPI. With the permission, the messaging app will be able to expand its service to the country's 100 million users, according to a statement released by NPCI on Wednesday.

WhatsApp was approved to go live on UPI under the multi-bank format by the retail payments umbrella company in November 2020. At the time, the messaging app was authorised to gradually increase its UPI user base in the country, starting with a maximum of 20 million registered users. WhatsApp was given permission to double the number of UPI users to 40 million a year later.

WhatsApp Pay, the meta-owned messaging app's UPI-based payment mechanism, has been in beta status since 2018, with one million users. The RBI's data localisation guidelines for payment providers in India, which the platform had to follow, remained one of the platform's largest roadblocks.

NPCI informed the RBI in June that it was pleased with WhatsApp's compliance with the regulator's data storage requirements and was ready to go live on the UPI platform, according to an affidavit filed by the central bank before the Supreme Court (SC) in 2020.

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