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The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has removed the Whatsapp Pay user cap for onboarding with immediate effect. Now, Whatsapp Pay can provide UPI services to all of its Indian users, according to a statement from NPCI.Earlier, NPCI permitted Whatsapp Pay to grow its users in stages up to 100 million users. Whatsapp Pay will be able to grow its services without limits as this has now been as this restriction has now been removed.According to NPCI, WhatsApp Pay will continue to follow all current UPI rules and circulars for Third-Party Application Providers (TPAPs).In 2020, NPCI imposed a user cap of one million on WhatsApp Pay, which was gradually raised to 100 million by 2022.NPCI put a user limit on Whatsapp Pay of one million in 2020, which was increased to 100 million by 2022.This limit has not been completely removed. Earlier, the restrictions were imposed to avoid overloading the banking infrastructure and ensure a streamlined rollout. NPCI has given a nod to remove the limit as the UPI sector is now more steady. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) was founded by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) and governs India's retail payment and settlement systems. The Unified Payments Interface (UPI) framework is managed by NPCI.Major firms like Google Pay and Walmart-backed PhonePe were given relief when the central government on Tuesday said that it will delay implementing market share caps for UPI transactions for two years.The proposal, which was introduced in November 2020, aims to restrict the market share of any digital payment company to 30 per cent of the total UPI transactions. The deadline, which was originally scheduled to be enforced by the end of 2024, has been extended to December 2026, according to a statement by NPCI.Presently, the UPI payment space in India is controlled by Google Pay and Phone Pay. As of November 2024, Google Pay has a 37 per cent share, while PhonePe has a 47.8 per cent share.Together, they processed 13.1 billion transactions in a single month, regulatory data showed. Paytm, Navi, Cred, and Amazon Pay are some of the other rival companies in the fintech sector.(With inputs from PTI)