WhatsApp will debut options for health insurance and micro-pension products in India by utilizing new partnerships, according to a report from The Economic Times.
WhatsApp plans to partner with State Bank of India (SBI) General to roll out the sachet-health insurance plan, and it will also work with HDFC Pension to debut the National Pension Scheme (NPS), the report says, quoting Abhijit Bose, head of India for WhatsApp. Bose said that some of these products, which have gone through pilot programs in the last few months, could be launched in full before 2020 ends.
“The ability for people to get insurance coverage — life and health — can protect the financial security of households from unforeseen expenses, especially during the pandemic,” he said, according to ET. “We hope these projects will make it much easier for micro-pensions and health insurance to be scaled to every Indian, regardless of location and income.”
The news also comes as the Facebook-owned messaging service will work in the coming months and throughout 2021 to expand its slate of services to include finance, commerce, education and social welfare.
P.C. Kandpal, SBI’s general CEO, said the broad reach of WhatsApp could do well to provide health insurance in India, where the gross domestic product (GDP) is just around 4 percent — lower than the world average of 6.31 percent. Kandpal said the new features could streamline the distribution and make customized, sachet products widely available, per the report.
In addition, WhatsApp has also recently gotten approval to roll out its payment platform in India after months of pilot experiments. National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates India’s unified payments interface (UPI) system, gave the green light for a “graded” rollout. As a result, WhatsApp will now be able to sign up to 20 million Indian users for the program, which will involve working with several banks as well.
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