DHAKA: WhatsApp announced it will stop charging users an annual fee to access the messaging app.

Jan Koum, co-founder of WahtsApp, made the announcement at the Digital-Life-Design Conference in Munich, reports telecompaper.com.

Registered users were previously asked to pay EUR 1/USD 1 for the app each year, although this was often waived in promotional offers.

The company said it does not plan to introduce advertising in order to finance its service going forward.

Instead it will start testing tools that allow users to communicate with businesses and organisations over WhatsApp.

Examples include “communicating with your bank about whether a recent transaction was fraudulent, or with an airline about a delayed flight”, the company said, noting most people already used to receiving these kind of messages through other channels, such as SMS and calls.

WhatsApp is a subsidiary of Facebook, which has also recently started testing communications with businesses over the social network’s Messenger service, as a means of increasing ad revenue. WhatsApp claims nearly one billion users worldwide.

BDST: 1630 HRS, JAN 19, 2016
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