Last year, Facebook announced the development of a cross-company payment system that will also enable money transfers via WhatsApp. A first public test was to take place in Brazil. With 120 million active WhatsApp users, the South American country is one of the US software giant’s most important markets.
Now, a decision by the Brazilian central bank has led to an abrupt end to the test phase of the WhatsApp Pay payment system. Before the payment system can be restarted, the authority demanded a preliminary analysis of the effects of the service. It fears that the introduction of the system controlled by Facebook could have a negative impact on competition and efficiency in payment transactions and that the privacy of users would be further undermined by further information.
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