eTranzact International PLC has started the implementation of Applock – a technology that ties mobile financial service apps with mobile phones to help Banks, mobile money operators and other partners reduce fraud and safeguard financial information of customers.
With over 15million smartphones currently in circulation in Nigeria and with efforts by the OEMs to increase this number by making smartphones even more affordable, mobile banking and mobile money adoption in Nigeria has also increased, leading to the need to scale up technology resources as well as think up new ways to make the process easier and safer for consumers. eTranzact has been heavily focused on building the infrastructural backbone of what is required to take this industry to new heights.
Speaking at the Information Systems Audit and Control Association Conference in Lagos, Mr Valentine Obi, CEO of eTranzact, talked about how fighting cybercrime and fraud is a collective effort, and proper coordination among the stakeholders is currently lacking to the advantage of the fraudsters.
He said; “Fighting cybercrime requires the collaboration of the entire ecosystem from the banks, switching companies, to the regulatory bodies.
The current strategy to fight cybercrime in Nigeria is not sufficient. N127b is lost every year in Nigeria to cybercrime according to the Minister of Communications, Mr Adebayo Shittu.
The payment industry stakeholders need to clearly define the rules of engagement in the event of a fraudulent activity in the industry. Information technology risks have evolved dramatically in the last few years but the approach that financial institutions use to manage them has not kept apace. Hard tokens cost as much as N3000 and if a customer with 4 accounts needs to get a token, that amounts to N12,000 per customer leaving the customer to either get the tokens or be excluded from electronic transactions altogether. We believe this is the age to deploy other cheaper and safer options that are not dependent on hardware.
eTranzact has created an Enhanced Strong Authentication system (ESA) which, in addition to the Applock technology, will significantly help reduce cybercrime and fraud in POS, Mobile and web transactions. With ESA, the Mobile phone becomes the token, allowing the user secure multiple bank accounts with one phone.
ESA will translate to savings of over N120b spent on hard tokens for 40million cards and will result in no foreign exchange loss. ESA allows the generation of one time password codes and setting dynamic spending limits on ATMs and Cards”.
