How to approve a UPI IPO mandate on WhatsApp Pay

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WhatsApp Pay is Meta’s UPI-based payments feature integrated within WhatsApp for India. It operates on the same NPCI UPI infrastructure as Google Pay, PhonePe, and BHIM. When your IPO bid’s UPI Virtual Payment Address is registered on WhatsApp Pay, the UPI mandate appears in the Payments → Pending section of WhatsApp.

However, WhatsApp Pay has known limitations for IPO mandate use: it supports a smaller set of sponsor banks and issuer banks than the other major UPI apps, and its mandate-routing reliability during peak IPO subscription windows has historically been lower. This guide covers the procedure and the limitations you should be aware of before relying on WhatsApp Pay for an IPO application.

For the generic mandate approval flow see the generic mandate approval guide. For bid submission on Zerodha see the Kite web guide. For UPI ASBA background see the wiki article.

Limitations of WhatsApp Pay for IPO mandates

Before using WhatsApp Pay as your primary UPI app for an IPO application, be aware of the following:

  • Supported banks, WhatsApp Pay’s partner bank list for UPI mandates is smaller than that of Google Pay, PhonePe, and BHIM. NPCI publishes the list of banks compatible with each payment service provider. If your bank or the sponsor bank for the issue is not on WhatsApp Pay’s compatible list, the mandate will not route through WhatsApp Pay.
  • Mandate discovery, WhatsApp Pay surfaces mandates under Payments → Pending, which is less prominently placed than the home-screen display of BHIM or the Requests tab of Google Pay. Users who are unaccustomed to the Payments section may miss the mandate.
  • Push notifications, WhatsApp mandate notifications blend into the regular WhatsApp message stream. Some users with high-volume WhatsApp usage miss the mandate notification in the noise.

If you are uncertain whether WhatsApp Pay will successfully receive the mandate, consider registering a secondary UPI VPA on BHIM or PhonePe with the same bank account and using that VPA for IPO applications.

Step-by-step procedure

Receive the WhatsApp notification

Within thirty seconds of submitting the IPO bid, you may receive a WhatsApp system message from the Payments contact or a push notification labelled Mandate Request. The notification appears in the WhatsApp conversation list as a system message.

If no notification arrives, proceed to check the Payments section manually.

Open WhatsApp and navigate to Payments

Open WhatsApp on your phone. On Android, tap the three-dot menu in the top-right corner and select Payments. On iOS, tap Settings in the bottom navigation, then Payments. The Payments home page opens, showing your linked bank account balance and transaction history.

Tap Pending under Payments

On the Payments home page, look for a Pending section or a Pending requests tab. The IPO mandate appears here as a card with the amount, issuer name, and expiry.

If the mandate is not visible, wait two minutes and pull-to-refresh the Payments section. Mandates sometimes take longer to propagate to WhatsApp Pay compared to other UPI apps.

Tap the mandate card and review details

Tap the mandate card. WhatsApp Pay displays:

  • Payee/Issuer name, the IPO company name or sponsor bank.
  • Amount, the block amount.
  • Validity, the end date.
  • Beneficiary, the sponsor bank.

Verify the issuer name matches the IPO you applied for and the amount matches your bid value.

Tap Pay and enter your UPI PIN

Tap the Pay button. Despite the label, this action authorises the mandate block; no funds are transferred from your account. The NPCI PIN entry screen appears. Enter your four- or six-digit UPI PIN.

Confirm success and check Kite

WhatsApp Pay displays a confirmation screen showing the mandate as authorised. Return to Zerodha Kite, navigate to Bids → Order history, and verify the bid status reads Mandate Accepted within thirty seconds.

What can go wrong

  • Mandate not visible in Payments → Pending even after 10 minutes. WhatsApp Pay may not have received the mandate if your bank or the sponsor bank is not in its compatible bank list. Open your bank’s own UPI app (YONO, iMobile, PayZapp, etc.) and look for the mandate there.
  • Pay button is greyed out. The mandate may have timed out. Return to Kite and check the bid status. If still Mandate Pending, withdraw and re-submit the bid. See the mandate timeout guide.
  • Mandate notification blends into chat notifications. Search for Payments in the WhatsApp conversation search bar to find the system message quickly.

References

  1. NPCI UPI 2.0 mandate specification, https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/product-overview.
  2. NPCI Circular dated 8 September 2025, Enhancement of UPI Per-Transaction Limits for Capital Markets and Insurance Premium Categories.
  3. FAQs on UPI in Public Issue Process, SEBI, July 2019.
  4. WhatsApp Help Centre, WhatsApp Payments in India, https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/payments.

Reviewed and published by

WebNotes Editorial Team

The WebNotes Editorial Team covers Indian capital markets, payments infrastructure and retail investor procedures. Every article is fact-checked against primary sources, principally SEBI circulars and master directions, NPCI specifications and the official support documentation published by the intermediary in question. Drafts go through a second-pair-of-eyes review and a separate compliance read before publication, and revisions are tracked against the SEBI and NPCI rule changes referenced in the methodology section.

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