Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp has secured regulatory approval from Indian Govt for launching its digital payment platform— WhatsApp Pay. WhatsApp so far struggled to get regulatory approval for operating its payments interface due to issues with data localization but has reportedly agreed to comply with the govt’s requirement for digital payments firms to store all critical data locally, within India. WhatsApp Pay is designed to run on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI)—developed by the National Payments Corporation of India—which allows users to pay others or do business transactions through their bank accounts. According to several online news reports, the public rollout of WhatsApp Pay will take place in phases within the next six months, which is apparently due to its large number of users in India. The process will follow the same process of authentication as any existing UPI payments app— for first-time UPI users, they’ll be prompted to select their bank, following which a user’s phone number will be validated. The user then will be prompted to choose his UPI ID and set a UPI PIN as mandated by his bank. Once this entire setup is complete, users will be able to invite others by sending a payment request to those who do not have the service yet. Alternatively, transactions can be made to existing WhatsApp Pay users.