Fraud is a constant battle for businesses of all sizes and one of the best ways to fight fraud is with data.

The problem with that statement, however, is that the data landscape can be incredibly fragmented so in order to establish a network of trust between a business and a customer can be rather problematic.

Global digital communications platform Infobip reckons it has a solution to this problem – Mobile Identity.

According to GSMA, there are expected to be 613 million unique mobile subscribers in Sub-Saharan Africa with 50 percent of the region expected to be subscribed to a mobile network by 2025.

Using a mobile number to verify a customer’s identity then, can be incredibly beneficial to businesses that deal with financial transactions and other transactions prone to fraud. One of the ways this is accomplished is through a variety of API checks facilitated by MTN Chenosis. Launched in 2020, Chenosis is best described as an API marketplace where businesses can tap into a massive library of data MTN has at hand to help improve their business offerings.

Infobip is using this in a variety of ways. One way is by monitoring when a SIM swap was last done. This sounds trivial but as telecom business director at Infobip, Viktorija Radman explains this can be used to prevent fraudulent transactions. For example, should a SIM Swap have taken place in the last 24 hours before a transaction is attempted, the transaction could be flagged as potentially fraudulent and further verification can be done.

The goal here is to make the customer experience more streamlined while at the same time not putting the business at risk.

From our perspective and what we heard from both MTN Chenosis and Infobip, this is a solution that makes sense. Aside from preventing fraud, the data can further be used to extend lines of credit to customers based on the data made available.

In fact making use of MTN’s API can provide businesses with a range of functions including:

• Mobile Identity
  • SIM Swap,
  • KYC verify,
  • Home location (MNV),
  • Silent Mobile Verification,
  • KYC Pre-populate,
  • MTN Authentication,
  • Port Status,
  • IMEI Fraud,
  • Roaming Status,
  • SIM Active Status.
• Customer Information
  • Device History,
  • Customer Plan Type,
  • Phone Number Recycle Status,
  • Behavioural Marketing Data,
  • Geolocation,
  • Device On/Off status,
  • Customer Info API,
  • Call Forward Verification,
  • Call Line busy,
  • Customer tenure.
• Payments
  • Direct Carrier Billing,
  • Mobile Payment,
  • Prepaid Purchases.
• Communication
  • SMS API,
  • Calls API,
  • USSD Message API,
  • USSD Menu.

With access to this amount of data it’s comforting to know that Infobip and MTN Chenosis do their best to vet customers and insure they comply with regulations surrounding the processing of data. It’s always important to remember however that anything can happen but it’s good to know these companies put user security at the centre of their operations.

While we’ll stop short of saying the way these APIs can be used is limitless, there are a number of ways these APIs can be utilised for the good of customers and the businesses they use.

This is a space worth keeping an eye on as we suspect mobile network operators are about to become the prime destination for well maintained datasets that can be deployed to fight crime and prevent fraud.