With 250 Mn userbase and UPI in pipeline, WhatsApp seeks India head

An instant messenger company with 1.5 billion worldwide user base and over 250 million user base in India, which is about to launch it UPI payment feature is looking for a person to head its India operations. It's obvious.

It's none other than cross-messaging platform WhatsApp. After being questioned by its counterparts in digital payments space, this is an important position to fill for the Facebook-owned company.

Additionally, this is the first full-time hire for WhatsApp in India.

In its recent job description via parent company platform Facebook, it says "WhatsApp is seeking an exceptional individual to lead our efforts in India including products for people and businesses along with our interest in peer to peer payments. This is a senior leadership position that requires product experience as well as a track record of success leading partnerships and business development in India. This leader will need to build a close partnership with product and engineering teams to influence direction and to effectively represent WhatsApp’s long term strategy. "

It further added that the country head will be based in Mumbai and report to Matt Idema, WhatsApp’s Chief Operating Officer based in California.

WhatsApp seems to be taking it too easy and may face flak from users as it has been facilitating crucial data about financial transactions to third party service providers including parent entity Facebook, under an updated privacy clause.

The India head position has been vacant for a long time and it needs a candidate as soon as possible to monitor the peer-to-peer payments service in India.

Also Read: Neeraj Arora quits Paytm’s board after VSS’ accusations on WhatsApp UPI

For uninitiated, WhatsApp introduced its payments service in February 2018 for selected users in India under the beta programme. Also, this would come close to the heels of the WhatsApp Business app that was launched earlier this year.

The latest development also seems to be in compliance with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) recent comment, when it said that every participating organisation has to follow well defined UPI guidelines and stick to the aim of making the platform interoperable.

Besides, the parent entity Facebook has already been tarnished for it alleged involvement in past elections by manipulating users data via British data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.

The development was first reported by ET.