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WhatsApp Usernames Are Coming: Here’s How To Claim Yours
Meta says handles will keep phone numbers private. Regulators and fraud watchers are less sure the trade-off is that simple.
For more than a decade, using WhatsApp has meant handing out your phone number. But that’s about to change. Meta announced last week that the messaging platform will introduce usernames – handles that can stand in for a phone number, keeping personal contact details private.
The feature isn’t live yet, and a global rollout will unfold over the coming months. But reservations are already open, and the scramble has begun. Anyone hoping to carry the same handle across every platform will want to move quickly.
Reservations are currently limited to the mobile app. On iPhone, users will need to tap the You button, open their profile, and select “Create Username” or “Reserve Username,” depending on whether the rollout has reached them. On Android, the same options sit under the three-dot menu, in Settings, via your profile. There’s also a shortcut: users can claim their existing Facebook or Instagram handle, provided nobody has taken it first – though anyone chasing privacy may prefer a fresh name that isn’t linked to their other accounts.
The rules are similar to other online platforms. Usernames must be unique, between three and 35 characters, and composed of lowercase letters, numbers, underscores, and periods. All-number handles are banned, as are restricted words or phrases. If someone changes or deletes a claimed name, it returns to the pool after 14 days. Meta hasn’t said how many changes each user will be allowed, only that a limit is coming.
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The harder part of the puzzle is fraud. Meta plans an authorization key for first-time contact by username, but it hasn’t explained how it will police copycats impersonating public figures, which is a real concern when social media scams have already cost users billions of dollars.
Reuters reported that India’s government wants Meta to freeze the rollout until it justifies the feature and details how it will combat the elevated fraud risks. With more than 500 million users, India is WhatsApp’s largest market, and will be the first regulatory test of whether usernames launch everywhere at once.
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Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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