MUMBAI: Preparing the field for the expected big bang entry of Facebook-owned Whatsapp into the digital payments space of India, the largest payment company Paytm has launched 'Inbox', a messaging service that will allow consumers to chat and transact, simultaneously."We have realised that besides making payments, our users and merchants also like to communicate with each other. There is a need of social messaging, commerce and payments seamlessly blending into one another. One step for us towards meeting this consumer need is Paytm Inbox ," said Deepak Abbot, senior vice-president at Paytm.Explaining the features of this messaging platform, Abbot said besides texts, consumers can also send photos, videos, live location, capture and share moments with the built-in camera. Paytm Inbox is live on Android and will come on Apple Store very soon.Apart from the messaging service, Paytm Inbox also includes notifications, orders, and games.Under notifications, users can see offers and cashbacks available for the consumers they can track orders and transaction updates as well.To make the platform more engaging, Paytm has introduced cricket and other trivia-based games. Paytm Inbox is also an extension of the Paytm Lifafa feature on its wallet application, which was a big hit among consumers during the festive season of this year. Customers were sending small messages and pictures through Lifafa as 'shaguns' during Diwali and Bhai Dooj.Industry observers ET spoke to said that while Paytm's efforts clearly look at finding a marriage between payments and social messaging before it gets captured by WhatsApp in India, to get consumers to shift social media behaviour is a difficult challenge."What we have seen is that the switching cost of people from one network to the other is very high, Google tried to take people away from Facebook and Messenger as well, it didn't happen," said Vivek Belgavi, partner, fintech leader at PwC.