Facebook Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the US-based social networking website is moving closer to launch WhatsApp Pay in India.

Despite a successful test run of the payment service, the data compliance issues and regulations have kept WhatsApp Pay launch in abeyance for quite some time.

“We have our test going on in India. The test really shows that a lot of people are going to want to use this product. We’re very optimistic that we’re going to be able to launch to everyone in India soon, but of course will share more news when we have that,” Zuckerberg was quoted as saying by the news agency IANS.

The UPI-based WhatsApp Pay service is aimed to reach millions of users—especially the small and medium businesses (SMBs). As per media reports, more than half of MSME owners with annual business revenue between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 75 crore would use WhatsApp Payments once it is officially rolled out.

But, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the central government have their concerns over several WhatsApp features, especially in complying with the regulations.

However, WhatsApp had earlier said that the company has already built a local system to store payments-related data to comply with the RBI’s data localisation requirement. But in an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court, the federal bank had said that WhatsApp was yet to comply with its laid norms.

“We differentiate between payment systems that are built on top of the existing financial infrastructure like what we’re trying to do with WhatsApp payments or when we make payments in Instagram Shopping, and our work with something like Libra that is trying to build some new technological infrastructure for financial services,” Zuckerberg was quoted as saying by IANS.

Meanwhile, Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad came out in support of WhatsApp saying if the company meets the regulatory norms than RBI and NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) should allow it to begin its digital payment operations in the country.

WhatsApp is seeking to enter the market when giants like Google Pay, Amazon Pay, Walmart’s Phone pe and Alibaba backed Paytm are already running successfully in the digital payment segment. Like these big brands, Facebook via WhatsApp is eyeing for a piece of the digital payment industry which is estimated to hit $1 trillion by 2023.

(With input from agencies)