A new section dedicated to payments will arrive on WhatsApp in the future. The novelty was spotted in the beta version 26.33.10.70 of WhatsApp for iOS distributed through TestFlight, the system used to test applications in advance on Apple ecosystem devices, by the portal WABetaInfo. At the moment the new section is still in an early stage of development and has not even been made available to beta testers, so it is difficult to predict when it will arrive in the stable version of WhatsApp. Interestingly, however, Italy is also among the countries in which the new system should be made available.
How the Payments screen will be organized
The Payments screen should be organized into three sections. In the first you can choose a contact, indicate an amount and send money. In the second you will be able to save your credit and debit cards and their billing information, such as the card’s expiration date, CVV code, cardholder’s first and last name, country, address, city, province and postal code. You will also be able to download or delete previously stored payment information. The third section will be dedicated to shipping data, with the possibility of storing e-mail address, telephone number and physical address, as can be seen from the following screenshot provided by WABetaInfothe portal specialized in identifying news hidden in the WhatsApp code, which is the source that spread the news.
To be honest, WhatsApp already has payment systems in some markets, but how they work varies based on local infrastructure. In India, for example, transfers use the UPI system (Unified Payments Interface), which allows you to move money in real time directly between bank accounts. In Brazil, PIX is used for transfers between people, while in Singapore the service uses PayNow through a collaboration with Stripe. In Mexico, however, registered companies can accept payments directly in conversations.
As the source cited above explains «in these markets, WhatsApp had to gain regulatory approval and find a local payments partner before launching the product». And this is precisely one of the reasons why the appearance of Italy in the billing address country selector is an interesting fact, although it does not represent an absolute confirmation of the fact that the launch of the novelty will actually take place in our area too.
Other countries that are not currently part of the WhatsApp payment circuit appear in the screen under development: in addition to Italy, there are also Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Ghana, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States.
Apps that have already turned payments into a chat function
For the sake of the topic, we tell you that WhatsApp would certainly not lead the way in bringing payments into an instant messaging platform. There are already several apps that allow you to do this. In China, for example, WeChat Pay allows you to integrate conversations and transactions within the same ecosystem. Similar models are also present with Alipay and, in other Asian and Latin American markets, with services such as Grab, Gojek, GCash, Kakao Pay, Naver Pay and Mercado Pago.
The reason why these solutions are catching on is above all due to convenience: the payment is inserted directly into the path that the user is already taking, without having to open another application. According to the company Worldpay, digital payments have grown from 3% of global spending in stores in 2014 to 38% in 2024, while online they have risen from 34% to 66%. And WhatsApp could focus on this trend to make its app a useful tool not only for keeping in touch with friends, family, work colleagues, etc., but also for exchanging money with them.
