WhatsApp Brings Flows, Payments & Meta Verified To India

At the second Annual Conversations conference in Mumbai, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg launched several WhatsApp services for B2B users in India.

In a pre-recorded address, Zuckerberg said WhatsApp Flows gives businesses the ability to create customised experiences within chat threads. Businesses using Flows can create specific actions and automate several tasks for customers within the chat.

“So, for example, a bank can build a way for customers to book an appointment to open a new account, a food delivery service can build a way to place an order from any of their partner restaurants or an airline can build a way to check in for a flight and pick up a seat, all without having to leave the chat thread,” Zuckerberg said about Flows.

While Indian businesses can use APIs offered by WhatsApp to create a customer-facing experience, Flows will allow these businesses to do much more than just customer support or order tracking.

Alongside WhatsApp Flow, Zuckerberg also introduced payment solutions for B2B customers in India. Simply put, the Meta-owned messaging platform will now allow customers to pay companies from within the chat via their preferred payment method without having to leave the chat. This will likely tie up with WhatsApp’s internal UPI payment feature to offer a seamless experience to users, though no details were shared as to how it would work.

The payment solution is currently live in Brazil and Singapore. WhatsApp has already paired up with PayU and Razorpay to offer extended payment solutions to businesses in India.

Lastly, Meta also announced that it is bringing Meta Verified, its paid verification badge, to WhatsApp to let customers know that they are interacting with genuine businesses.

“Businesses that subscribe are going to get a verified badge, account support, impersonation protection and additional features that will help people find them more easily. So for WhatsApp, this includes premium features like a custom web page and increased multi-device support,” Zuckerberg said of the service, which will start rolling out in the coming months.

Talking about India, Zuckerberg said the country was at the forefront of what Meta would be speaking about at the conference. “India, (is) a country that’s at the forefront of a lot of what we’re going to talk about today. You’re (India is) leading the world in terms of how people and businesses have embraced messaging as the better way to get things done,” Zuckerberg said.

India is one of the biggest markets for WhatsApp around the world, with more than 500 Mn users in the country.