hike messenger is set to launch a payments mechanism on its app that will be linked to the governmentbacked unified payments interface upi a move that can make the messaging app the first in india to have the capability ahead of peers such as whatsapp the homebred messaging app which raised 175 million last year from tencent and foxconn valuing the company at 14 billion may launch peertopeer payments within the app and provide a platform for making digital transactions such as recharges for mobile phone subscriptions people aware of the companys plans said the app is holding talks with an indian bank to support the back end of the payments service one of the people quoted above said hike messenger declined comment the messaging platform had told et last november that it will look at integrating payments into the app and making the messenger a platform for making purchases from the app a model which has a lot of resemblance with wechat the chinese superapp backed by tencent by launching payments hike would become the closest competitor to facebookowned whatsapp which is planning to launch payments in india in the next six months according to recent reports the largest messaging app in the world which considers india as its biggest market with over 200 million users may also introduce payments based on upi and bhim bharat interface for money the government launched the bhimaadhaar or aadhaar pay app on saturday that authenticates a customers biometric details linked to his aadhaar account through fingerprint scanner thus doing away with the need to remember banking details the payment play of whatsapp truecaller hike and even several wallet apps like paytm and mobikwik ties in with the governments structured move towards cashless transactions while using or even without using the internet when the payment service goes live it could make hike the largest upibased payment platform in the country around 90 per cent of hikes over 100 million users worldwide are in india which will give it a large base to start from when it begins offering digital payments on the app the service may be one of several new features that it may add learning from wechat and qq chat apps both wechat and qq that have over 1 billion and 800 million users respectively in china allow users to shop transact and use partner services by gulveen aulakh et bureau published on apr 17 2017 at 0854 am ist telegram facebook copy link be the first one to comment comment now comments comment now read comment 1 all comments post post find this comment offensive choose your reason below and click on the submit button this will alert our moderators to take actions reasons for reporting foul language defamatory inciting hatred against a certain community out of context spam others report join the community of 2m industry professionals subscribe to our newsletter to get latest insights analysis download etretail app get realtime updates save your favourite articles