Cielo shares plunge after Brazil suspends WhatsApp deal

Shares in Brazilian payments company Cielo SA plunged almost 10per cent on Wednesday, a day after the nation's central bank and anti-trust regulator effectively blocked the launch of a new system that would allow WhatsApp users to send money via chats.

Cielo had sealed a deal with Facebook's WhatsApp, which has 120 million users in Brazil, to process the payments from the new service, a move that was expected to bolster the payments company's results.The central bank, however, said in a statement on Tuesday that rolling out the service without previous analysis by the monetary authority could damage the Brazilian payments system in the areas of competition, efficiency and data privacy.

"We think the central bank's measure is consistent with its intention to promote competition, especially as the regulator has been vocal in saying that it will not allow closed-loop schemes or exclusivity and that interoperability is essential to promote competition," analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a note to clients, adding that the deal's benefits remain to be seen.

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