Messaging giant WhatsApp launched the bill payments feature native to the app in India on Thursday.
The bill payments feature will allow users of the platform to find, manage and pay their household as well as utility bills within the app, and will be powered by the Bharat Connect (Bharat Bill Payments System) network, the company said.
Users will be able to pay bills across categories such as electricity, gas, water, Fastags, insurance, credit card and loan repayments, among others. It gives users access to 22,722 billers across 30 categories.
The launch of bill payments by WhatsApp in India comes at a time when the entity is already live with India’s real-time payments system Unified Payments Interface (UPI), further deepening its presence in the market.
The messaging app has over 850 million users in India alone; its largest market in the world.
“For millions of Indians, WhatsApp is already the simplest way to stay close to family and friends, talk to businesses, access citizen services, and buy everything from metro tickets to insurance — all without leaving the app. With Bill payments, we’re bringing that same simplicity to one of the most routine tasks in every household. We want to make paying a bill on WhatsApp as effortless as sending a message, and help bring the convenience of digital payments to people across the remotest parts of the country,” said Arun Srinivas, managing director and country head, Meta (India).
Users can use payment methods such as UPI, credit and debit cards to settle their bills online.
The company said it was gradually rolling out the service in the country with full availability expected across iOS and Android in the coming weeks.
WhatsApp clocked 167.89 million transactions worth ₹12,957.07 crore in July, more than doubling its transaction volume from last year.
It is the eight largest UPI app by transaction volume, ahead of players such as Cred and Amazon Pay.
In July 2025, it processed 74.6 million transactions with a value of ₹5,412.58 crore, becoming the 11th largest UPI app.
WhatsApp Pay first reached the 100 million transaction mark in December 2025.
The growth in the messaging service’s payments volumes comes about 19 months after the National Payments Corporation of India removed restrictions on WhatsApp Pay’s user onboarding in December 2024.
The apex retail payments body granted WhatsApp approval in November 2020 to go live on UPI under the multi-bank model in a graded manner, initially allowing it to onboard 20 million users. The limit was raised to 40 million in 2021 and subsequently to 100 million in 2022. In 2024, the restrictions on the number of users WhatsApp could onboard were removed.