WhatsApp head for payments division in India, Vinay Choletti on Wednesday, took to Linkedin to announce his departure from Whatsapp. Calling WhatsApp a critical lifeline for India, Choletti shared how he was humbled to see customers adopt WhatsApp Pay for novel use cases and that these will be the badges he’ll proudly wear in his lifetime. Choletti wrote in a LinkedIn post:
“As I move on to my next adventure, I strongly believe that WhatsApp has the power to phenomenally transform digital payments and financial inclusion in India. I look forward to seeing it leverage its potential in the coming years. I am humbled to see the customer adoption of novel use cases using WhatsApp Pay and I will wear these badges proudly for the rest of my life,”
Late last year, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) approved increasing the user cap for WhatsApp’s payment service from the current 20 million to 40 million users. WhatsApp received the nod from NPCI in April this year to expand the payment service to 100 million users.
Choletti joined WhatsApp in October 2021 as head of merchant payments, exiting Amazon after over seven years of association as head of SMB payments at its payment division. On November 1, WhatsApp rolled out a new feature that lets Bangalore citizens buy Namma Metro tickets at a 5 percent discount on the bus ticket fare.
The feature lets travelers skip long metro lines, allowing them to purchase transit tickets one-way, recharge metro passes, view schedules, and check updated fares. The chatbot also enables you to cancel your ticket.
Choletti took over from Manesh Mahatme, who left the Meta-owned application to join former employer Amazon India as a full-time director of product and engineering. Choletti and Mahatme’s exit comes at a crucial time for WhatsApp Pay, which won the mandate to extend its user base from 40 million to 100 million in April 2022.
His exit comes at a time when India is facing a mass exodus of top executives. The company is yet to release an official statement on his exit. In recent months, several senior executives have left Meta India. Last month, Abhijit Bose, Rajiv Aggarwal, and Ajit Mohan resigned as WhatsApp India chief, Meta public policy director for India, and Meta India head, respectively.
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