FreeCharge debuts ‘Chat and Pay’ option for consumers, merchants

NEW DELHI: Snapdeal-owned digital payments platform FreeCharge has added a ‘Chat and Pay’ option that lets users make social payments (also known as Person-to-person or P2P payments) via its Android app. The feature also connects merchants and consumers to chat, shop and pay, i.e. Person-to-Merchant (P2M) payments.


The ‘Chat and Pay’ service will be released for the Freecharge iOS and Windows Phone apps over the next few weeks, the company said in a statement.

In a statement, FreeCharge said “customers can seamlessly chat and pay in a secure way to friends, family and merchants in less than 5 seconds. It also enables direct buyer – seller Chat interface for merchants, small or large to accept digital payments in less than 1 minute after registering on the app.”

Freecharge also plans to allow merchants to upgrade their payment limits of Rs 1,00,000 with necessary KYC verification.


With this new feature, Freecharge aims to make digital payments frictionless and expand its digital payment ecosystem to include new users like neighbourhood small shopkeepers, taxi services and merchants from unorganized sector without any investment.

Govind Rajan, chief operating officer, FreeCharge, said, “Payments are often social; they are in fact a very human interaction. We are confident Chat and Pay will accelerate the adoption of digital payments. It will make digital payments ubiquitous in the offline space. Now merchants can start accepting digital payments by just downloading our app at Zero investment."