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WhatsApp Update: New feature could cost YOU a lot of money!
Whether it's splitting the cost of a meal or paying back friends, WhatsApp now has you covered with a simple new trick to allow you to pay them back – without leaving your chat window.
WhatsApp recently confirmed that it will finally be bringing-in its long-awaited wireless money transfer functionality in a new update.
The app has already trailled the feature in a beta, where the new peer-to-peer payment system was rolled out to around one million WhatsApp users.
Having proved successful in the test, the new system will now be making its way to all users.
The feature will be incredibly handy for those who need to quickly transfer money between close friends: you can simply transfer funds to them straight from your account, which will be linked to the app.
WhatsApp has started to launch a limited service for wireless transfers in India, where it has currently boasts more than 200 million users.
But we can expect to see the feature through the rest of the world fairly soon.
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The money transfers work by linking customers’ phone numbers to bank accounts to facilitate payments, similar to features you may already have in your banking app of choice.
As of launching in India, the country's third-biggest lender ICICI Bank is being used to processes the fund transfers on WhatsApp.
This marks the first global foray into money transfers by the company, and comes alongside new updates to the app's ToS which have left some customers concerned about data privacy.
Money transfer solutions like this aren't new to the Facebook-owned app.
Facebook, which bought WhatsApp for $19 billion back in February 2014, already added a peer-to-peer payment solution to its Messenger chat app – a feature which it implemented in November last year.
Apple has also introduced the ability to send peer-to-peer payments via Apple Pay within its iMessage chat service, a feature that was introduced with tha launch of iOS 11.2 in the United States last year.
Now WhatsApp joins the field, it'll be interesting to see which chat apps join the race next.
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