WhatsApp Launches Prepaid Recharge Feature to Accelerate In-Chat Payments in India
In Focus
- WhatsApp has partnered with PayU to roll out prepaid phone recharges
- Users can top up on leading operators like Vodafone Idea, Airtel, and Jio
- WhatsApp lags behind Google Pay and PhonePe in digital payment transactions
WhatsApp is introducing prepaid mobile recharges in India. The move is aimed at getting more users to transact within the messaging app as the social media platform struggles to catch up in a payments market which is currently led by Google Pay. Walmart’s PhonePe, which shut down its pincode service last year, is also a major player in India’s digital payments industry.
PayU Partnership Allows Direct Top Ups
WhatsApp has partnered with fintech firm PayU to roll out prepaid phone recharges in India. The WhatsApp-PayU partnership means that users can top up directly within the messaging app on leading operators like Vodafone Idea, Airtel, and Jio.
“Bringing mobile recharges to WhatsApp allows users to complete a routine transaction within a platform they already use daily. This is a natural step toward making digital payments more accessible and embedded,” PayU Payments’ Chief Business Officer, Hemang Dattani noted as cited by IBS Intelligence.
Over 500 million people in India use WhatsApp. However, the messaging platform remains a marginal player in digital payments despite introducing its payment feature in 2020. In March 2023, the platform processed more than 130 million transactions.
This is significantly low compared to Google Pay, which processed 7.5 billion transactions, and PhonePe which completed over 10.5 billion over the same period. WhatsApp will be making the prepaid mobile recharge feature available to all users in India in the coming two weeks.
Meta’s Long-Term Plan to Expand Payments
The move to launch the WhatsApp recharge feature in India builds on the platform’s long-term strategy to expand payments and services in India. As the Meta messaging platform expands its influence in digital payments, the majority of people in India already use chat-based tools to pay their bills, access government services, and book metro tickets.
The platform has already added the rupee (₹) icon on its home screen to make its payments section easier to find. The section appears alongside features like mobile recharges and peer-to-peer transfers.
WhatsApp said these interface updates make day-to-day transactions within the messaging app easier.
“By bringing recharges directly into WhatsApp, we are making it easier for people to stay connected without switching between multiple apps. This reflects our effort to create a unified and seamless user experience,” Meta’s Director of Business Messaging in India, Ravi Garg noted.
Why Digital Payments Matter to WhatsApp
WhatsApp’s decision to introduce the prepaid recharge feature in India reflects Meta’s efforts to increase engagement beyond messaging. Transactions on the messaging app have increased since 2025, a year after the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) lifted onboarding limits for the platform.
Data from the NPCI shows that UPI transactions have more than doubled, from about 61 million in January 2025 to the current 130 million. Walmart’s PhonePe and Google Pay have recorded a 30% and 20% growth respectively, over the same period.
As a major player in the global digital payments industry, India attracts products from leading tech companies. Last year, Google introduced a UPI-linked credit card in the country to deepen its consumer finance footprint in the digital payments ecosystem.
