According to rumours, WhatsApp is testing verified business accounts. It is not completely a surprise, since Jan Koum (one of the founders of the app) had already anticipated such a possibility in 2016. And now it appears that the instant messaging platform (the most popular around the world, with over 1.3 billion active users) is seriously working to make this idea a reality.
If you open the FAQ section of the company’s website, you can find this note: ‘WhatsApp is exploring ways for you to communicate with the businesses that matter to you. Some business accounts have been verified by WhatsApp. If you see a green badge next to a contact’s name, it means that WhatsApp has confirmed that the phone number of this contact belongs to a business account. WhatsApp will also let you know when you start talking to a business via yellow messages inside a chat. There is no way to delete these messages from the chat. If you already have a business’s phone number saved in your address book, the name you will see is the name you have saved in your address book. If you don’t have a business’s phone number saved in your address book, the name you will see is the name the business has chosen for themselves. If you’d like to stop a business from contacting you, you can block them. Note: WhatsApp business verification is currently limited to a small number of businesses participating in a pilot program.’
But why the company is so interested in this new system? Because, as Koum explained back in 2016, it will help raise money without adding advertising into the app. It seems also that for the moment this new version of the app will be available just for the Android platform, and the news seems to be confirmed by a job vacancy spotted by Business Insider where WhatsApp was looking for a ‘technical specialist, SMB – product operations’. The announcement also added: ‘Become an expert in the WhatsApp Business app for Android and a source of information to the Market team members.’