WhatsApp Pay only after RBI nod, Supreme Court told

WhatsApp on Wednesday assured the Supreme Court that it would not launch its payment gateway, WhatsApp Pay, before getting the approval of the Reserve Bank of India. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal made the statement on behalf of the messaging platform, before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde. The three-judge bench then clarified that there was no stay on WhatsApp’s application pending with the government.

The top court was dealing with a petition filed by NGO Good Governance Chambers, seeking to restrain the government from allowing WhatsApp and Facebook to operate payment gateways. The petition claimed that the reach of WhatsApp and Facebook represented a real threat to the security of financial information that would pass on to them. The court recorded Sibal’s statement, and issued notices to the National Payments Corporation of India, the RBI and the government seeking their formal legal stand on the issue. They will have to respond within three weeks.