A year ago, me and my friends tried to move over several of our group chats to Signal, but all of those attempts failed. A year later, all our chats are back on WhatsApp. Signal simply wasn’t as convenient as WhatsApp and we never managed to get everyone onboard. Using WhatsApp was so habitual that we just couldn’t make the switch work.
Read MoreCentral Bank of Brazil vs. WhatsApp Payments
Time will tell what the real story was behind the central bank’s decision to suspend WhatsApp Payments. But given all the complexities, economic incentives, and power structures involved, I wouldn’t be surprised if the suspension would remain in force for a long time.
Read MoreWhatsApp payments is interesting because of the massive user base
Some people have already speculated that a successful global rollout of WhatsApp payments could quickly kill most of the existing local peer-to-peer mobile payments solutions. For example, in Finland and Sweden (which both are small countries but quite advanced when it comes to mobile payments) most people use Swish, MobilePay, or Siirto. Each solution is backed by a bank (or a group of banks) and each have their limitations. WhatsApp, however, is used by almost everybody and it’s relatively easy to see how it could quickly become the preferred platform for sending money.
Read MoreWhat happened to Libra and what's up with WhatsApp payments?
Who remembers Libra, the blockchain based digital currency that Facebook announced exactly a year ago in June 2019? The one which was supposed to be governed by an association with lots of prominent members, like MasterCard, PayPal, Visa, eBay, Spotify, Uber, Lyft, Vodafone Group, Andreessen Horowitz, and of course, Facebook. The one which was supposed to be officially launched in 2020.
If you’ve already forgotten about Libra, then you’ve probably also forgotten about Calibra, which was what the platform and wallet was called. We were told that Calibra wallets would be accessible via Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and it would also be released as a standalone app.
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