By Prarthana Mitra
Social media giant Facebook has recently rolled out a feature that enables Android mobile users in India to recharge their prepaid mobile numbers within the Facebook application. With this feature, Facebook aims to make a splash in India’s booming digital payments market, which is expected to grow to $1 trillion by 2023, according to predictions by investment bank Credit Suisse.
Sources familiar with the development told FactorDaily that the service will, however, remain independent of Facebook-owned WhatsApp’s peer-to-peer payment service in India, which is also in its beta-phase at the moment.
Here’s what happened
Nestled in the settings tab on the latest version of Facebook’s Messenger application is the new mobile recharge option. Previously available to users in the US and the UK, the top-up feature is most likely a test run for the network’s in-house payment service in India.
The new mobile recharge option works just like online recharge operators like PayTm and Mobikwik. Users will be required to enter their phone details, including their number and operator, following which they can browse from a list of plans. Following this, a message flashes, choose a plan and pay with your debit or credit card its fast, secure and free. Alternatively, users may manually enter the desired top-up amount as well.
The feature has not yet been extended to iOS applications. It is also worth noting that payment gateways are currently restricted to MasterCard and Visa only. Facebook recently hired Sunali Rohra from Visa as the head of payments partnership for India and South Asia.
Why you should care
By saving your card details, checking out next time becomes faster, but only time will tell if this is a safe bet, especially after the series of security violations levied against Zuckerberg-led Facebook in the last few years. The social networking giant, however, claims that payment on Messenger is secure because it uses an encrypted connection.
The in-app payments service may, in the long run, incorporate peer-to-peer payments to merchants. This will benefit and boost business prospects for all those who are slowly warming up to Facebook’s Marketplace, that allows users to sell and purchase items through the application. With digital payment platforms like Paytm emerging as the primary beneficiaries of the demonetisation drive in India, the market is now ripe for new players to make their entrance. With the huge popularity of Facebook in India and the projected growth of the digital payments market, it won’t be long before Messenger sees huge traffic for mobile recharge requests.