The Facebook-owned company is currently allowed to extend its payment service to a maximum of 20 million users for peer-to-peer transactions.

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A month and a half after receiving regulatory approval from the National Payment Council of India (NPCI) to roll out payments on its messaging platform, WhatsApp has unveiled plans to offer financial services like health insurance and micro-pension products in India.

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The American tech firm is partnering with the domestic financial services players including SBI General for health insurance cover and HDFC Pension for National Pension Scheme (NPS) products that will be available on its chat platform, Abhijit Bose, head of India for WhatsApp, said on Wednesday during Facebook’s Fuel for India 2020 event. According to WhatsApp, some of these micro-finance products that it has been piloting over the last few months could go live by the end of this year.

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“The ability for people to get insurance covers – life and health – can protect the financial security of households from unforeseen expenses especially during the pandemic,” said Bose.

“We hope that these projects will make it much easier for micro-pensions and health insurance to be scaled hopefully to every Indian regardless of location and income.”

The Facebook-owned company, which received the nod from Indian regulators to operate WhatsApp Pay in early November after almost three years of running it in beta, is currently allowed to extend its payment service to a maximum of 20 million users for peer-to-peer transactions.

Read more @Kr Asia