WhatsApp, our favorite instant messaging service, has for the past several months seen a lot of changes and addition of new features. Today, it is rolling out a program where business accounts are getting green badges if their contact information is confirmed legit. At the moment, this is limited to small businesses and those that are participating in the beta program.
In addition to these verification badges, WhatsApp is also introducing new business-centric enhancements. From now on, texts exchanged with a business account will have a special yellow text bubble around them; this will help users distinguish the conversations more easily. Moreover, these text messages will not be deletable. As a result, the integrity of the communication is ensured.
Earlier this year, WhatsApp was reported to have had plans for the introduction of mobile payment services to its now widely used platform. This move can be viewed as one step towards that direction. How this plays out and it eventual adoption by businesses remains to be seen.