WhatsApp to bring back money transfer feature

“(We) are making the final preparations to have payments on WhatsApp available in Brazil as soon as possible,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement.

The messaging platform, which has over 120 million users in Brazil did not say when it will start offering the service.

It may be recalled that WhatsApp had provided users with a money transfer facility two years ago. The facility was introduced for testing in many countries including Brazil and the United States, after which the scope of the experiment was expanded.

When Facebook’s owned WhatsApp messaging service tried to launch the transfer service last June, the central bank said it could damage Brazil’s existing payments system in terms of competition, efficiency and data privacy, adding that the service had failed to obtain the needed licenses.