The latest in a string of domestic senior-level departures at parent company Meta Platform Inc. is Vinay Choletti, head of WhatsApp’s India payment unit, who left the company after only four months in the position. In a late-night LinkedIn post on Tuesday, Choletti stated, “As I embark on my next journey, I truly think that WhatsApp has the power to tremendously revolutionize digital payments and financial inclusion in India and I look forward to watching it utilize its potential in the coming years.”
What’s Wrong With WhatsApp Pay India?
A number of executive positions have changed recently at Meta. Abhijit Bose, Ajit Mohan, and Rajiv Aggarwal, who oversaw public policy for Meta in India, had all left their positions in November. Choletti assumed leadership of PaymentApp in India after Manesh Mahatme left to work for Amazon in September. Choletti worked at Amazon for seven years prior to joining WhatsApp Pay as the head of Merchant Payments in October 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile.
As it tries to gain traction in a fiercely competitive market and compete with more established payment options like Walmart’s PhonePe, Ant Group-backed Paytm, and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Pay, WhatsApp, the messaging service owned by Meta, has been attempting to entice more Indians to use its peer-to-peer payments service.
