WhatsApp now allows businesses to send authentication and login codes through its API to users in India. The company confirmed that it enabled this functionality in India starting July 1.
Meta introduced this ability for merchants to authenticate users in other geographies last year. However, it started allowing these types of messages from organizations in Malaysia in June and India in July.
Last month, the company also started applying an international authentication rate for activities like sending login codes for cross-border users.
“As we mentioned onstage at ‘Conversations’ last month, we want to give people and businesses the ability to get more things done right on WhatsApp — and that includes one-time passwords so people can get a login code and quickly sign in,” a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch.
“Giving people and businesses simple ways to verify accounts on their app of choice will continue making WhatsApp the best place for business to get done.”
Having India activated as a market is a big deal, as there are estimates suggesting telecom networks send over 1 billion one-time passwords (OTPs) every day. For WhatsApp, which counts India as the largest market with more than 500 million users, it’s an opportunity to have some of those authentication messages go through its platform and charge businesses in the process.
WhatsApp has been restructuring its messaging fees for businesses since last year. Authentication messages provide a new way for WhatsApp to bump up that revenue and also habituate users to use the app more. Last month, the company also announced AI-powered features for designing ads to helping merchants with customer support on the WhatsApp Business app.
