LatamList – Facebook and Cielo, a Brazilian fintech, petitioned the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) for a reversal of the decision to suspend WhatsApp’s new payments feature in Brazil. Brazil’s Central Bank suspended the service after investigating the potential risks to the country’s payments infrastructure.
The WhatsApp payments service is for Visa, Mastercard, and Cielo bank accounts. Facebook and Cielo wrote to CADE defending the service, stating that the deal still allows competition from other financial services.
“Facebook and WhatsApp will only offer an additional channel for payment transaction between consumers and merchants,¨ the document read.
Cielo and Facebook said that business transactions only relate to finance, and therefore would not risk concentrating the market. The feature will remain suspended until further notice.
Read more on Exame.
