Visa and Mastercard credit, debit and prepaid card holders will be able to make purchases through WhatsApp. The Central Bank (BC) authorized this type of transaction in the Facebook Pay Program, as the payment system through the messaging application is called.
In March 2021, the two operators, Visa and Mastercard, had been authorized to make resource transfers, deposits and prepaid transactions via WhatsApp. Since then, BC was analyzing the release of purchases by Facebook Pay.
“In this way, there are no more regulatory impediments to carrying out purchase transactions with credit, debit and prepaid cards through WhatsApp (P2M). This new functionality joins the transfer of resources between users of this application, authorized in March 2021 (P2P) ”, highlighted the BC in a note.
Accession
The monetary authority also clarified that the membership of new institutions (accreditors or payment issuers) interested in participating in Facebook Pay remains open. Once approved, new participants in the tool must wait a month to start operating WhatsApp transactions. According to BC, the deadline is necessary to preserve competition in the means of payment market.
“In respect of regulatory principles related to competition and non-discrimination aspects, the BC determined that the start of payment transactions in production through the WhatsApp application must be communicated by the settlors to all participants of their payment arrangements at least 30 days in advance”, highlighted the Central Bank in its statement.
