After facing some hurdles over the years, WhatsApp launched UPI-enabled WhatsApp Pay in India last November. However, payment services have never really succeeded from the perspective of active users. In fact, earlier this year, we reported a drop in trading volume from 810,000 in December to 560,000 in January. At the time of writing this article, this number dropped to 470,000 in July this year. To increase user recruitment WhatsApp is currently testing payment shortcuts in beta testers..
WhatsApp paid chat shortcuts
As discovered by WhatsApp Tarekomi WABetaInfoThe messaging giant has begun testing new payment shortcuts in the beta 2.21.17.19 chat window. Expanding the Chat Options menu, this feature was previously available, but new changes improve the visibility of the feature. The WhatsApp Pay shortcut is right next to the camera and microphone buttons.
As you can see in the image above, WhatsApp has not yet removed the dedicated payment button. Therefore, you can use the new shortcut or access WhatsApp Pay from an existing menu. To avoid redundancy, you have to wait for WhatsApp to see if it removes the old Payment shortcut.
The new placement should improve the visibility of WhatsApp Pay. It will be interesting to see if the new shortcuts will help improve the adoption of payment services by users. You’ll see it months after WhatsApp publishes a payment shortcut to a stable version of the app. On the other hand, if you are not interested in using WhatsApp Pay, you can browse the list of the best UPI apps from the linked articles.
