Mumbai: Facebook-owned WhatsApp messenger announced the appointment of Manesh Mahatme as the head of payments in India. Mahatme will focus on enhancing the payments experience for users, scaling the service offering, and work towards contributing to WhatsApp's vision of digital and financial inclusion in India, it said in a statement.

Mahatme previously served as a senior executive at Amazon India where he led the product and engineering teams for US online retailer's payments business, Amazon Pay. His earlier professional stints also include Citigroup and Bharti Airtel.

"We are excited to have Manesh join our WhatsApp India team," WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose 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, which has more than 500 million Indian users, in November last year received a much-delayed approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for the launch of its payments system in the country. However, its rollout so far has been capped by regulators at 20 million users. 

The Facebook subsidiary is set to compete with fintech companies like Paytm, Google Pay, PhonePe, and Amazon Pay.