Meta’s long-awaited plan to allow users to send money to businesses via messaging app WhatsApp in Brazil has been hit by clashes with potential payments partners, marking the latest blow to the tech giant’s sprawling ecommerce ambitions.

WhatsApp had aimed to launch a payments-to-merchant (p2m) function in Latin America’s most populous country late last year, according to several people familiar with the project, in what would be a world-first for the encrypted messaging app.

However, WhatsApp has so far struggled to sign up local “merchant acquirers” — companies that process electronic payments and are needed to help launch and run the service — and is still awaiting approval from the central bank in the country, its second-largest market with 120mn users.