This April, IPification and our CEO Stefan Kostic had the privilege to attend the NG Telecoms Summit in South Africa where he held a presentation on our seamless authentication solution.
The audience mainly consisted of mobile network operators who were interested in the new revenue streams that IPification provides as well as the seamless security measures when it comes to mobile money, the core of the operators’ businesses in this region.
Sub-Saharan Africa is actually the epicenter of this technology which allows the unbanked users to store, send and receive money, and requires nothing apart from their mobile phones. As such, it gives them the chance to be included in society.
For these reasons, mobile money was one of the most talked about topics at the summit.
Mobile Money as the Main Innovation Channel in Africa
Having originated in Kenya in 2007, the mobile money technology is now used by more than 23 million customers for anything from paying their bills to buying groceries.
Just to ensure the size of this growing industry is understood – this technology generated over $100 billion of economic value in sub Saharan Africa in 2017 which represents 7.7% of the GDP and supports around 3.5 million jobs in the region.
However, when a FinTech technology experiences the acceleration of 25% in growth of accounts over a year, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the biggest issue it faces is security. A study in Kenya, for example, shows that more than 70% of Kenyans have been victims of financial fraud or know someone who has.
With that in mind, it’s easy to see the reasoning behind the operators’ interest in innovative technologies capable of dealing with these issues.
How Mobile Operators & Service Providers Can Mitigate Security Issues While Reducing Cost
It is the operators’ responsibility to secure end users, and we are seeing lots of development efforts in this aspect, although all of it is taking a lot of time and costing even more.
The main problems they are facing security-wise are the infamous SIM swapping and the user onboarding process, for which the operators are trying to find a solution. And that’s precisely where IPification fits in.
In the meantime, the operators are working on educating the end users on the dangers of having their PIN numbers or other personal information exposed, as well as the processes to be taken should this happen.
After all, data shows that an individual is more likely to be hacked through a mobile money transaction compared to ATM cards, online banking or cheques. In an industry where over $1 billion is transferred every day, it’s evident that cooperation between mobile network operators and authentication providers towards a common goal is necessary.
“Considering that this region is pretty much unbanked, mobile operators just might be the most important institutions for the digital users for anything from mobile money, communication to entertainment, and they are perfectly aware of this. It’s precisely why they are interested in solutions such as IPification that are already there, yet effective enough to mitigate these issues,” said Stefan Kostic, CEO of IPification.
We’ve had a lot of formal and informal meetings during the NG Telecoms Summit, and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed exchanging ideas with major African mobile network operators. Moreover, our presentation was rated 9.5/10 and exciting cooperation plans are in the works!
“IPification is a truly innovative solution that benefits network operators in numerous ways. At the Summit, we were mentioned by the CEO of NTEL in his slide on disruptive innovation for new revenue streams which just proves that more and more people are starting to realize the immense value IPification authentication has to offer,” Stefan Kostic added.
