Disruptive Indian telco Reliance Jio expanded its mobile payments service to allow customers to make cash transfers through its chat application.

The company announced the new functionality, which is available to customers with an existing Jio Money wallet, on Twitter earlier this week.

Providing financial services using chat and social media platforms is tipped to become a major trend this year, with big names including Facebook and Snapchat’s parent company Snap offering payments through chat in the US. Facebook is widely rumoured to be bringing the feature to Europe after the company secured a licence for electronic payments across the EU in December.

Wider disruption
Jio’s entry into the mobile market last year sparked a fierce price war which led to Airtel calling for regulatory action and Vodafone looking to merge its operations with Idea Cellular.

Alongside this aggressive move in the mobile market, Jio set about increasing its stake in the country’s mobile money sector since announcing its entry into the market in 2015.

The company, which counts India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani (pictured) as its largest shareholder, launched its merchant services division in December with the promise it would sign up 10 million businesses to accept digital payments within weeks.

Parent company Reliance Industries also secured one of the Reserve Bank of India’s payment bank licences in September, enabling it to supply a wider range of financial services traditionally supplied by banking institutions. Under the terms of its licence, it must begin commercial operation within 18 months of the date of issue.