Whatsapp has started a pilot programme to verify business accounts, tagging those with a green badge which have been checked.

?If you see a green badge next to a contact?s name, it means that Whatsapp has confirmed the phone number of this contact belongs to a business account,? read a description in the FAQ section of Whatsapp website.

Besides a green badge, Whatsapp will also let the users know when they start talking to a business with yellow messages inside a chat. These messages cannot be deleted from the chat.

If users already have a business? phone number saved in their address books, the name seen would be the one saved in the address books. 

However, if the number is not saved in the phone, the name appearing would be the one the business chooses.

According to The Verge, the green badges are an effort to make businesses appear more trustworthy on the messaging app, and could encourage more businesses to get on the platform.

Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, but has yet to generate any revenue from the app's more than one billion users, Business Insider stated. But the social networking giant appears to be growing more focused on making money from the chat app.