As a regular user, there are no fees for sending money or making purchases. That’s the standard in the space. With Venmo, for instance, sending money to someone is free so long as you don’t use your credit card to do so. Additionally, WhatsApp payments build on the catalog functionality the company introduced last year. The latter allows entrepreneurs to build a mobile storefront for their business, and that’s the part of the app where WhatsApp users in Brazil can buy things. 

Facebook has been working on adding payments to WhatsApp since as far back as 2017. In 2018, the company started testing the feature in India, WhatsApp’s biggest regional market. Part of the delay in getting payments out to more users likely has to do with the fact the social media giant spent time building out backend features like Facebook Pay. Now that payments are officially a part of WhatsApp, the company says it plans to bring the feature to “everyone as we go forward.”