PicPay wants to become Brazil’s superapp and attract WhatsApp conversations

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Born as a financial application to facilitate banking transactions, PicPay is becoming a “super app”, a solution that integrates several services in one place. According to Luiz Fernando Diniz, head of Social at the startup, the company wants to embrace more and more functions, especially from social networks, and be the home of interactions on other platforms, such as WhatsApp.

In an interview with TecMundo, the company executive made it clear that it aims to be a “Brazilian WeChat”. The Chinese app is known for encompassing payment services, marketplace, and social functions, all in just one app.

Diniz points out that the governmental limitations of the Chinese market facilitate the creation of a platform of this type. Still, PicPay is prepared to compete with giants and try for a place in the sun among the “super apps”.

In 2021, the payments platform invested in new messaging and social interactions features. The company had already bet on the segment as a differentiator for years. The feed with updates has been available since 2016. It realized a link between social interactions and payments.

According to Diniz, 15% of payments made on PicPay generate conversations, which motivated the company to launch a direct messaging segment on the platform. In addition, the arrival of the Central Bank’s Pix platform, which has an errand function, also boosted the investment in a chat. When a payment from the new system arrives with a text attachment, the app allows the conversation in the DMs section.

ATTRACT WHATSAPP CONVERSATIONS

With the investment in social features and becoming a super app, PicPay even intends to attract some interactions between users in other apps. The head of the platform’s Social division explains that the platform does not want to be the place where you receive “Good Morning messages” but intends to be the place for conversations about payments and banking transactions.

According to Diniz, including features such as messaging and audio chats allows users to interact without leaving PicPay. With this, inevitably, the company ends up crossing the path of platforms like WhatsApp, which also adopts payment mechanisms.

“We want to decrease steps and make the payment journey simpler,” explains the PicPay representative. “So, of course, there is a point of overlap where we end up taking conversations away from WhatsApp.” Still, Diniz clarifies that there is a big difference between the apps.

Even though it is in a gray area for messaging, PicPay intends to invest in security to become a complete social app. The app’s chat solution does not yet have end-to-end encryption like WhatsApp, but the feature will come in the future.

In the meantime, Diniz sees no problem in the absence since the app has “bank security,” and the company seeks to prioritize solutions to protect banking transactions. “PicPay stands out for financial security, and all these layers end up overlapping and defending the messages.”

With information from TecMundo

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