Payments on WhatsApp rolled out in Brazil temporarily, but then the system got shut down just a week later due to regulatory concerns in the country.
Update, June 24, (12:49 PM ET): Unfortunately, it appears that payments on WhatsApp are already ending, at least for now. According to Folha de S. Paulo (via Android Police), regulators in Brazil decided that the new ability for WhatsApp users to easily transfer funds between each other needed more scrutiny.
As of now, Brazil is the only area of the world with the payments feature, so this will likely halt rollouts to other areas.
The primary reason for the roadblock is anti-trust concerns. More than half of Brazil’s population uses WhatsApp so a payment system baked directly into the platform suddenly makes other options far less competitive.
