Mukesh Ambani-Mark Zuckerberg partnership will upend payments sector: Experts

BENGALURU: The Reliance Jio-Facebook partnership is expected to upend the digital payments sector, crowd out small players and drive consolidation, fintech experts said.

Facebook-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp and telecom operator Jio plan to work with 30 million corner stores across India to help them transact digitally with customers in their neighbourhood. The companies will then extend the digital payment service to farmers, teachers, students and small and medium-sized enterprises.

The move will help WhatsApp directly take on established players Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm, possibly even dominating the sector. WhatsApp has more than 400 million users in India and is waiting for final clearance to launch its WhatsApp Pay service, which is designed to run on the Unified Payments Interface.


WhatsApp has technology and reach, while Jio has huge network among corner stores across India. Other fintech players have spent years building a network of merchants from scratch, something WhatsApp will not have to do. “Both of them combined will constitute a formidable player in the payment space. It will surely make it difficult for other companies to compete,” said Sanjay Khan Nagra, partner, Khaitan & Co.

The combination could potentially be for India what WeChat-WeChat Pay, Alibaba-Alipay are in China, Nagra said. “In the payment space, only a select few are expected to emerge as winners. Pretty sure, this will also lead to some consolidation in the space,” he added.