Upping WhatsApp's payload: How Meta is monetising users in India

Its might in India is at the forefront of Meta's drive to monetise messaging with payments

Axis Bank, India’s third-largest private sector lender, has 15 million people registered for its WhatsApp service, and adds a million more every month. Managing Director Amitabh Chaudhry says the bank has sent 210 million messages using WhatsApp and disbursed Rs 930 crore in personal loans through the platform.

Axis Bank is one of the several reasons why Meta, which owns WhatsApp, in addition to Facebook, Insta­gram, and Threads, sees India at the centre of its global push to monetise messaging, with WhatsApp as the axis.

“India (is) a country that’s at the forefront of a lot of what we’re going