Facebook Inc intends to drive a global expansion of mobile payments on WhatsApp from London, accelerating its efforts to make money off the popular messaging service.
The world’s largest social media company picked the UK as the centre of that push because it routinely attracts talent from markets where WhatsApp is popular, such as India, a spokesman for Menlo Park, California-based Facebook said. WhatsApp dispatched engineers to Britain late last year as part of a drive to recruit about 100 people in London and Dublin to support its payments initiative, the spokesman said, confirming an earlier Financial Times report.