Meta had just announced another rather big expansion of its messaging payment solutions. Meta has recently struck a deal with financial app Stripe to facilitate in-stream payments on WhatsApp in Singapore. This new partnership will expand WhatsApp’s business capacity in the fast-growing SEA region, by enabling thousands more businesses to facilitate direct payments within a chat thread.

According to Stripe:

“The new feature is built on Stripe Connect and Stripe Checkout and enables Singapore customers and businesses to buy and sell directly in WhatsApp without having to go to a website, open another app, or pay in person. Supported payment methods include credit and debit cards, and PayNow, a real-time payment system popular in Singapore.”

Big Stripes

PayNow has apparently become a key payment facilitator in the region, with over 80% of residents and businesses actively using the option. This new integration with WhatsApp will open up significant opportunities for it to become a bigger facilitator of business transactions among its 4.56 million Singaporean users, which equates to 80% of the country’s population being active in the app.

Meta has been working on in-stream payment functionality for years, partnering with various providers to meet the requirements of local authorities, thus expanding the capacity of WhatsApp in key markets. Meta originally purchased WhatsApp back in 2014, a central element of its monetization plans being the expansion of messaging commerce, based on what was seen from similar apps, like WeChat in China. Meta then expanded the utility of Messenger in 2016, with the introduction of various new functionalities and options. However, Western users, thus far, haven’t shown much interest in using messaging apps beyond their core purpose, which has hastened its plan for a broader messaging business push.

Meta then directed its attention to developing the same tools in markets like India and Brazil, where it might be able to better integrate messaging commerce into rising usage trends. These pushes have been slowed by local regulatory requirements, but Meta is now making inroads, with in-stream payments gradually expanding in each market.

It’s a bit of a slog, and Meta would have liked to have seen more of a return on its WhatsApp investment by now, but these new functions could facilitate a range of new possibilities for business in the app.

The Wrap

With Western users also increasingly using messaging apps for interaction, as opposed to posting on social platforms, there could well be potential in these regions, if Meta can clear the various hurdles required to facilitate in-stream payments. This is the reason its expansion into more markets is significant – because it not only builds on Meta’s immediate market potential but also provides more examples to show it can be trusted in managing this element.

The option to enable payments on WhatsApp in Singapore will be made available to all local businesses using the WhatsApp Business Platform over the coming months.

Sources

https://bit.ly/42HVWrP