Manish Mahatme, the former director of Amazon Pay in India, has been appointed as the Director of WhatsApp Payments for the country, according to a press release by WhatsApp on Monday. In this position, Mahatme plans to enrich the payments experience for users and work towards expanding its service offering. “Payments to WhatsApp is uniquely placed to be a significant partner in the country’s growth agenda by making digital payments accessible to users across the length and breadth of India," Mahatme reportedly said. His role at the social media company will also include clearing various regulatory hurdles that have reportedly hindered the growth of WhatsApp’s payments business. Particularly, Mahatme will have to work on growing WhatsApp Pay in spite of the National Payments Corporation of India's current limit of 20 million for the service's user base. Mahatme’s résumé Prior to his appointment as head of WhatsApp’s digital payments arm, Mahatme was the director and a board member of Amazon Pay where he led efforts on the product, engineering, and growth fronts of the platform. An alumnus of BITS Pilani (electronics engineering) and SP Jain, Mumbai (management), Mahatme has over 17 years of experience in the digital financial services and payments sector which include previous stints at Citibank and Airtel Money as well. WhatsApp's payment system was launched in India last year after much delay, and when it was finally rolled out, the user base for WhatsApp Pay had been capped at 20 million users by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).…
