Qatar-based telco Ooredoo will deploy the BICS solution in order to block activity from known fraud numbers in order to boost mobile customer experience for its subscribers.
Fraudulent activity cost operators over €28 billion in lost revenue last year. FraudGuard aims to tackle this by utilitising a crowdsourced database detailing suspicious activity detected across BICS’ global base of over 1,200 customers.
FraudGuard collates potential fraud activity to recognise and pre-emptively block known fraud numbers which are identified from a list of over 50 million that have been linked to criminal activity. The aim is to reduce the time to react to potential fraud attempts, ultimately boosting the user experience and subsequently the reputation of BICS partners, BICS said.
FraudGuard was launched in 2013 and has blocked over 600 million fraudlent call attempts, saving partners around €2 billion in wholesale exposure, according to the Belgium-based telco.
“We’re very pleased to be expanding our relationship with Ooredoo Group through this new collaboration with Ooredoo Global Services,” said Katia Gonzalez, head of fraud prevention, BICS.
“FraudGuard is powered by operator collaboration and knowledge-sharing of suspect network activity, so with its significant subscriber base creating huge volumes of traffic, Ooredoo Group is a brilliant top tier addition to the collective of players working to combat a major threat to their businesses.”
The deployment of FraudGuard is the latest step in a long-running partnership between BICS and Ooredoo Global Services, the wholesale arm of Middle-Eastern telco Ooredoo. In 2015, the two companies extended an existing partnership to include LTE roaming services using BICS’ IPX platform. Other services offered between the two carriers include connectivity, voice, messaging and roaming services.
Khalid Al Mansouri, COO, Ooredoo Global Services, said: “As part of our commitment to enhance our customers’ digital lives and enable them to enjoy the Internet even more, we have joined forces with BICS, a leading communications enabler that will support us in making our customers’ mobile experiences more reliable and highly secure.
“Adopting BICS’ proactive FraudGuard solution will allow us to strengthen our existing fraud management solutions and support us in our efforts to overcome the challenges caused by telecoms fraud.”
Combatting fraud has been a key area of focus for BICS, with its CEO Daniel Kurgan leading the ITW Global Leaders’ Forum fraud sub-committee. In March, the GLF launched its Code of Conduct to combat Fraud. The Code, which was developed in partnership with the i3forum, already has more than 18 carriers who have signed up.
The Code of conduct is initially focused on fraud in the wholesale voice market, but it will widen its attention to cover areas such as messaging and cloud, said Kurgan during a presentation at ITW 2018.
