After several trials in Brazil and India, payments through WhatsApp chats are now live in Singapore. meta (the Chief Mark Zuckerberg’s technology company that manages giants such as Facebook or Instagram), started in Singapore in the hands of one of the pioneers in mobile payments.
According to special media report WhatsApp payment will work with Stripe, A start up (start-up company) specialized in mobile payments has become a de facto giant of Silicon Valley. Users will be able to make payments through WhatsApp to various businesses, both online and offline.
Payment options include credit or debit cards, as well as Singapore’s PayNow system. At the moment it’s an option reserved for a few shops through WhatsApp Business, but it’s a preview of what may be coming globally.
WhatsApp has found the missing piece in Stripe. and that while the trials in Brazil and India were largely based on local payment systems, With Stripe they have a very easy mechanism for exporting internationally.
WhatsApp doesn’t have ads or be paid, but it is used by over 2,000 million users. This makes it a potential source of income for Meta, and payments are precisely one of the ways Zuckerberg’s company has chosen to achieve this.
Everything would be as simple as writing to the store and sending it a message. Something like what Bizzum (Spain) or Zelle (USA) has created, but even more quickly integrated into WhatsApp. The problem with these payments is not the interface, but the financial infrastructure behind it to process them. And that’s where Stripe comes in, a true benchmark within the so-called sector fintech (Innovation and technological development of financial products and services). The last estimate of Stripe’s value was $50 billion. This, in the context of the crisis, is a huge number.
mobile payment in WhatsApp will be one of the future ways we can make payments. We are on the threshold of a digital payments boom Whether it is due to the advent of digital currencies, the expansion of cryptocurrencies or the improvement of systems like Bizzum. Singapore, like many other things, is one of the first countries to bet on this type of payment.
And in Cuba?
The potential introduction of this technology in Cuba would have several obstacles. Firstly, there are problems with Internet access on the island. In late April, it emerged that the average connection speed via mobile data in 2022 was about 5.74 Mbps, which means a slowdown of 9.7 Mbps (62.8%) compared to 2021 (15.5 Mbps). According to a report made public in early March by Access Now, an organization that monitors internet blackouts around the world, the Cuban government was set to have the most internet cuts in 2022 in Latin America.
On the other hand, the financial system controlled by the Cuban government has a poor technological development. The island’s banks always limit customer operations. For example, if you deposit foreign currency into an account, you will need to wait to be called on a waiting list before you can withdraw it. In addition, the novelty of paying via WhatsApp would have a terrible precedent in Cuba: the TransferMovil application.
It has the responsibility of acting as the main digital payment platform used by Cuban, with over 3.7 million users. Delays in carrying out operations, some limitations on operations with foreign currencies, and poor technical support and customer service have marked the trajectory of this application.
