WhatsApp Payments had an opportunity that it is quickly, if not already, losing to Google Pay. I see everyone asking for that, instead of UPI, which again I see as a lost opportunity by the Indian Government/NPCI, because instead of creating a single database of mobile numbers mapped to payment details, they gave in to the banks wanting to protect their turfs, and creating a mess out of a very good system.

Aadhaar was going there, but then it lost momentum because of the court judgement on usage.

I also think Paytm is a lost opportunity because it does not give interoperability with the other UPI systems in the manner it should, primarily because there is no mobile to UPI mapping available, but also because it tries to inject its own wallet in the workflow, making it a frustrating experience.

None of them realising that the thing that is keeping WhatsApp the king of messaging in India is the mapping to mobile numbers and, to a much lesser extent, the cross platform nature.

One thing, that all these stake holders need to remember, the consumer did not wait for Nokia or Blackberry to come up with a better device. And by the time they did, the world had moved on.

So, go on, someone who can (I’m looking at you NPCI/Aadhaar), create a verified api for this lookup.