Send money with WhatsApp: who can already do it

The ability to send money to a WhatsApp contact gets closer and closer: announced the first tests of integration of the wallet Novi inside the messaging app

Sending money to a friend via WhatsApp is a feature that many would like to see in the most widely used instant messaging app in the world and that, sooner or later, will come: it is in fact started the first test of integration of the "wallet" Novi within WhatsApp and it is an important news, so important that it was the same CEO of WhatsApp Will Cathcart to communicate it on Twitter, sharing the tweet of Stephane Kasriel, CEO of Novi.

"People use WhatsApp to coordinate sending money to loved ones and now Novi will help them do it securely, instantly and without fees," so Cathcart shares the news of the arrival, in the US, of the first test of Novi integration directly inside the WhatsApp app. A test for the moment limited to a few users, but it's the beginning of a revolution that could soon arrive in Europe as well, allowing everyone to exchange money safely, while respecting privacy. Here's how it works and why it shouldn't be confused with WhatsApp Pay.

What is Novi

Novi is one of the Facebook-Meta companies and is the one in charge of the big project to integrate money exchanges into the group's apps. Until May 2020 it had another name, Calibra, and among its goals was to create Facebook's cryptocurrency: Diem, which was previously called Libra.

A complex and troubled project, then, that at the moment is only at the beginning: Novi is focusing its efforts on the creation of a money exchange system based on the USDP currency, i.e. Pax Dollar, a digital currency that is exchanged 1:1 with the dollar. Novi is currently only available in the United States and Guatemala, where transactions are automatically converted into the local currency, the Guatemalan quetzal.

How Novi works on WhatsApp

Going from theory to practice, fortunately, things get easier. American users who will participate in the test will only have to sign up to Novi and open a "wallet", i.e. a digital currency wallet of their own, connecting a real credit card to it.

At this point they will be able to send money in a very simple way to other users with a Novi wallet, through a simple message on WhatsApp: the money will be taken from the card of the sender and will be credited to that of the receiver. At the moment Novi does not provide any commission.

It is not WhatsApp Pay

In the end, it should be noted that everything described so far is not the famous WhatsApp Pay, that is, the system of payment through WhatsApp that, even he, is being tested in the United States and other countries.

WhatsApp Pay, in fact, serves to buy directly from the WhatsApp app, paying with traditional currency, after viewing the catalog of a WhatsApp Business profile. The exchange of money, in this case, is for the purchase of a good or service. With Novi, however, we talk about donations without a commercial transaction. For example, a parent sending money to a distant child, or friends giving a gift to a birthday person.