WhatsApp appoints ex-Amazon executive Manesh Mahatme as payments business head in India

Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp has appointed former Amazon executive Manesh Mahatme as head of its payments business in India. WhatsApp, in a statement on Monday, said Mahatme has over 17 years of experience in digital financial services and payments across Citibank, Airtel Money and Amazon Pay.
 
His last stint was with Amazon where he spent about seven years as director and board member of Amazon Pay India and led product, engineering, and growth teams, it said.
 
"Payments on WhatsApp is uniquely placed to be a significant partner in the country's growth agenda by making digital payments accessible to users across the length and breadth of India," said Mahatme.

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Abhijit Bose, Head of WhatsApp India, said Manesh has been one of the key innovators driving the growth of digital payments in India over the last decade, and his experience will help us maximise the impact and scale of payments on WhatsApp.
 
"WhatsApp has immense potential to digitally empower people across segments and help accelerate the Government of India's efforts to drive financial inclusion through UPI and digital payments," Bose said in a statement.
 
Mahatme said: "Payments on WhatsApp are uniquely placed to be a significant partner in the country's growth agenda by making digital payments accessible to users across the length and breadth of India."
 
WhatsApp received the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) nod for using the country's Unified Payments Platform (UPI) payments system in November 2020 to 20 million users only.

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