The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has removed the user cap from WhatsApp Pay. The move now allows the popular messaging platform to bring its entire user base of over 500 million to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). In a release announcing the decision, NPCI said that the limit of 100 million users on WhatsApp Pay has been removed.

The decision comes after WhatsApp Pay restrictions were gradually eased since its launch in 2020. Initially, the limit was limited to one million users. Then in 2022, the limit was increased to 100 million and now it has been removed completely.

Read NPCI's notification.

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has removed the UPI user onboarding limit for WhatsApp Pay (third-party app provider) with immediate effect. With this development, WhatsApp Pay can now extend UPI services to its entire user base in India.

Earlier, NPCI had allowed WhatsApp Pay to expand its UPI user base in a phased manner. With this notification, NPCI is removing the limit restriction on user onboarding on WhatsApp Pay. WhatsApp Pay will continue to follow all the existing UPI guidelines applicable to existing TPAPs.

WhatsApp Pay has struggled to gain a foothold in the competitive UPI market. It had 51 million transactions in November, while Google Pay and PhonePe had a combined 12 billion transactions. At the same time, in November 2023, WhatsApp Pay processed about 22 million transactions.

Meanwhile, NPCI has deferred the implementation of market share caps for the popular digital payment method by two years. The move will benefit Google Pay and PhonePe. According to NPCI, the order, which was to come into effect at the end of 2024, will now come into effect at the end of December 2026. As per the first proposal made in November 2020, digital payment firms are not allowed to have more than 30% of the transaction volume processed via UPI

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