WhatsApp has begun rolling out in-app prepaid mobile recharges in India, partnering with fintech firm PayU to let users top up their own number or that of friends and family without leaving the messaging app.
The feature supports India's three major telecom operators, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, with payments accepted via UPI, debit card and credit card.
It is being introduced in phases on Android and iOS and is expected to reach all users within two weeks.
WhatsApp has added a rupee icon to its home screen as a central hub for payments, recharges and other services including metro ticketing and bill payments.
The move marks the first time WhatsApp has offered a direct, built-in recharge option, though Reliance Jio had previously operated a chatbot on the platform that allowed its own subscribers to browse plans and pay through WhatsApp Pay.
The PayU integration extends that capability across all three major operators.
"Bringing mobile recharges to WhatsApp allows users to complete a routine transaction within a platform they already use daily," said Hemang Dattani, PayU Payments' chief business officer.
Despite having more than 500 million users in India, WhatsApp remains a marginal player in the country's digital payments market.
The platform processes roughly 130 million UPI transactions per month, a fraction of the volumes handled by Walmart-owned PhonePe, which completed more than 10.5 billion transactions over a comparable period, and Google Pay, which processed 7.5 billion.
WhatsApp Pay launched in India in November 2020 after a prolonged beta phase and regulatory approvals but was initially capped at 20 million users, a restriction that was only fully lifted in late 2024 when the National Payments Corporation of India allowed the service to extend to its entire user base.
The delayed rollout gave competitors a years-long head start in building merchant networks and user habits.
The recharge feature is limited to prepaid connections, which account for the majority of India's mobile subscriber base, and is not available on WhatsApp's desktop or web clients.
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Neither WhatsApp nor PayU has said whether postpaid bill payments will follow.
The update is part of Meta's broader strategy to transform WhatsApp from a pure messaging app into a platform for everyday digital services in its largest market by user count, building on existing functionality for peer-to-peer transfers, metro ticket purchases in select cities and government service access through chatbots.
The recap
- WhatsApp adds in-app prepaid mobile recharges for users in India
- Users can top up their own or family members' numbers
- The company says the feature is available now in India
