WhatsApp, now you can send money and make purchases: how it works

WhatsApp has released a tool to make digital payments directly on the application. Here's how it works and when it arrives in Italy

WhatsApp releases in Brazil the feature to make payments or send money to friends directly within the application. This is a feature that has been talked about for a long time and that Mark Zuckerberg himself had announced at the beginning of the year. For the messaging app, this is an important step towards a new phase in its history that will make it more and more a 360-degree application.

The new tool will allow people to exchange money with a simple click on the app (very useful, for example, if you need to give money to your friends after going out to dinner) and small and medium-sized companies to accept digital payments. After adding in previous months the possibility to create a catalog on WhatsApp Business, now with this new feature the app turns into a real free online e-commerce. The feature is also very secure: before completing the money transfer on WhatsApp you need to enter a six-digit code, fingerprint or use face recognition (enabled only on iPhones with FaceID).

How to send money on WhatsApp

The new feature is based on the Facebook Pay platform presented by Mark Zuckerberg in previous months. The goal of the Menlo Park company is to use this platform on all apps owned by Facebook (in addition to WhatsApp and the blue social, there are also Messenger and Instagram), so that the user does not have to enter their personal data every time.

Utilizing WhatsApp Pay is very simple: if you need to send money to a friend, just go inside the conversation and press on the payments icon. It should open a tab where you enter the amount of money and then the money is transferred as if it were a simple message. All very quick and easy. To use the function you must enter the data of your credit card, compatible with the Facebook Pay platform (the types of cards change from country to country).

In addition to sending money to friends, with WhatsApp Pay you can also make purchases on e-commerce sites that support the platform and on WhatsApp Business. Again, it only takes a few taps on the screen to make the payment. The platform can be very useful for all SMEs that have difficulty in offering a digital solution for customer payments.

How much does it cost to send money on WhatsApp

Facebook Pay is free for users: transferring money to your friends does not involve the payment of any commission. Different matter for businesses: transactions have small fees for processing payments received from customers.

WhatsApp Pay is safe?"

Privacy issue. In a post published on its official blog, WhatsApp assured that the feature is very secure. Before completing the payment, users will be asked to enter a six-digit code, or to confirm the purchase with their fingerprint or facial recognition.

When does it arrive in Italy

For the moment, the function has only been released in Brazil, but WhatsApp has already assured that in the coming months it will arrive all over the World, so also in Italy. We'll just have to have a little patience and soon it will be possible to send and transfer money directly on WhatsApp

.