Manesh Mahatme, former Amazon executive to head WhatsApp Payments in India

Manesh Mahatme has been hired as the Director of WhatsApp's payments division in India. He joined WhatsApp after about seven years as a director and later a board member at Amazon Pay India. He has also worked for four years at Airtel Money, the payments division of telecom giant Airtel.

Mahatme will aim to improve customers' payment experiences, scale the service offering, and contribute to WhatsApp's mission of digital and financial inclusivity in India.

By making digital payments available to users across the length and width of India, Mahatme believes WhatsApp Payments is ideally positioned to be a key partner in the country's growth strategy. Mahatme stated, "I am super excited to be a part of this growth story."

Abhijit Bose, Head of WhatsApp India, stated, “Manesh has been one of the key innovators driving the growth of digital payments in India over the last decade, and his experience will help us maximize the impact and scale of payments on WhatsApp."

Bose highlighted how WhatsApp has enormous potential to digitally motivate people from all walks of life and aid the Indian government's efforts to promote financial inclusion through UPI and digital payments.

For years, the payments platform of the Facebook-owned firm has battled regulatory issues in India.

WhatsApp will compete with Paytm, Google Pay, Walmart-owned PhonePe, and Amazon Pay in India, in a highly competitive market.

In November of last year, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) approved the platform for use with the country's Unified Payments Platform (UPI) payments system. For the time being, WhatsApp is only permitted to offer access to 20 million users.