Let me start with by laying a common ground:

Whatsapp UPI – cash transfer platform

Monthly active users – sending money through whatsapp atleast once a month.

Location – India

Objective(why) – Increase MAU

so to improve the MAU means taking the market share from other competitors. as there are too many competitors in this space like PAYTM, GPAY, BharathPay etc.. it is important where we aim to position this whatsapp UPI feature and consider various personas.

whatsapp in India is seen as a personal messaging/calling app, where people sometimes feel awkward to share their whatsapp number with strangers. so the concept of using whatsapp to pay at random shops/persons would be uncomfortable to a lot of people.

so lets target the market, where the user already knows the other side of sender. they can be friends/family/class any thing. they know each other outside.

If you not understood by now, I would be using why/who/what framework to answer this.

WHO: 

whatsapp is used by all sections/ages of people in India and I would categorize them by age.

6-15 : this would have been wierd to consider such young users, but after covid, people use whatsapp for sharing notes, taking classes and everything.

I wouldn’t suggest such early users to use UPI/financial platforms, but, their parents would find it handy. like paying tuition/school fees, sending them to excursion, sending other parent nightout money etc..

16-30: this is age where users would have bank accounts(with pocket money) and also a mobile. this users would be going to trips, have to split their bills, send gifts etc..

30+ : people would be more interested to pay bills on time at this age :p

so with all these scenarios lets see the opportunities in two ways:

functional and emotional.

Functional: 

6-15: market about the scenarios. because that’s what we want. scenarios where it can be used.

16-30: add a bill split feature to groups. so, they can easily track expenses or anything.

30: lets the prominent bots(vendors) accept money through whatsapp.

Emotional: 

position it as an app to send money to your near and dear ones. most people use whatsapp to wish friends on anniversaries, birthdays etc.. so just market it as a way to send gift for occasions.

Priority: 

the first action to be taken is to change the GTM plan and position towards a market by using emotional contact with whatsapp.

in parallel functional requirements like bill split and bot payments can be introduced to improve traction.

Summary: 

in order to compete with top competetors and neck to neck market conditions, we have use our strength and position ourselves. niche rather than cliche.