Saima Ikram
Facebook’s financial future is not completely banking on the success of “Libra“. The cryptocurrency could well play an instrumental role in extending the company’s financial services all over the world but for now, WhatsApp Pay is all set to be next PayPal, i.e – everybody could be using it soon, very soon than expected.
Facebook has tested WhatsApp Pay to a limited one million users in India and the results are very encouraging. The company has not taken any transaction cut yet but may introduce a certain percentage for facilitating it. The company is also planning to roll WhatsApp Pay to other countries after a successful launch in India — if that happens soon.
The only stumbling block in launching WhatsApp Pay in India is the legal requirement of not storing the data in foreign servers after 24 hours, reports Economic Times. Facebook needs to store transactions and data within India.
“The hope is to get that rolled out in a lot of places with existing currencies before the end of this year,” said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook.
Libra, on the other hand, is trying to get off the mark but that seems shaky. With the recent course of events, partners backing out of the deal, one would not be surprised if the launch is delayed. The cryptocurrency is initially scheduled to launch in 2020.
Before forming its council on Monday (Oct.14), Libra, sadly has lost almost 1/4th of its initial members. It all started with PayPal dropping out on Oct.3th and a week later, Stripe, eBay, Visa and Mastercard announced their decision.
“We highly respect the vision of the Libra Association; however, eBay has made the decision to not move forward as a founding member,” a spokesperson told Quartz.
With partners abandoning the initiative, Booking Holdings also announced not to support the initiative.
However, the Libra Association met this week in Geneva, Switzerland and the group has elected a five-person board as initially promised that will work independent of Facebook and will take its own decisions.
1/ Awesome day today at our inaugural Libra Association member council! It was energizing to see reps from many different industries, and interests come together with one mission at heart, improve access and lower costs to digital money and financial services for everyone.
— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) October 14, 2019
