This archive report was first published on 16 June 2020.
On June 16, 2020, Facebook announced the launch of WhatsApp Pay in Brazil, marking a significant expansion of its digital payments service in emerging markets.
The move is part of Facebook's broader strategy to bring more e-commerce to its platforms, as outlined by CEO Mark Zuckerberg in January.
WhatsApp Pay allows users to send money to one another for free or make purchases from small businesses, with the service being part of a wider digital payment strategy across all of Facebook's platforms.
“Because payments on WhatsApp are enabled by Facebook Pay, in the future we want to make it possible for people and businesses to use the same card information across Facebook's family of apps,” WhatsApp stated on its blog.
While person-to-person payments will be free, small businesses will have to pay a “processing fee to receive customer payments,” the blog added.
With 120 million users in Brazil, the country has become WhatsApp's second-largest market after India, where the service has been trialling the payment service with 400 million users.
However, the firm's efforts to launch WhatsApp Pay in India have been held up for two years by regulators.
Facebook has also invested in Indonesia-based ride-hailing app Gojek, with the firms planning to expand Gojek's digital payments service GoPay.
Facebook bought WhatsApp for about $20 billion in 2014, and in February, the messaging service said it had more than 2 billion users around the world.
Additionally, Facebook announced a 10% stake in Indian telecoms group Reliance Jio for $5.7 billion in April, giving the company a powerful ally in Reliance Jio's chairman Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man.
