Whatsapp Payments May Hire Former Paytm Vice President as India Head

Facebook owned WhatsApp may hire former Paytm vice president, Amit Lakhotia for the position of WhatsApp's Payment Services in India. The position became vacant after Neeraj Arora resigned to start his own fund service venture in the US.

Apparently, during his visit to India, WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels, had interviewed prospective candidates for the position. He also interviewed Amazon financial services' Sriraman Jagannathan, but he decided to keep his options open and not take up the job.

Neeraj Arora, who resigned from the post of head of WhatsApp payments in India was supposed to help in hiring for the same role before he left. Amit Lakhotia who is expected to take up the top position at WhatsApp India had quit Paytm in 2016.

India is one of the biggest markets of WhatsApp and the company wants to utilise it by introducing a new UPI based payment service. The payment service is only available on trial basis as of now because it has not received government and RBI’s approval for the official launch. WhatsApp and its parent company Facebook’s, involvement in data scandals have further delayed the launch of the payment service. WhatsApp had recently faced backlash as its platform was used to send fake messages that lead to mob lynching in some states in India.