With a surge in cybercrime throughout the world, and looking to bolster the security and efficiency needs of SA consumers, the Wireless Application Service Providers Association (WASPA) has partnered with international cybersecurity company, Evina.
David Lotfi, CEO of Evina, points out that SA is a major economy at the forefront of the latest developments in mobile payments. One of the main advantages of a young and dynamic economy like this, he notes, is that it can easily benefit from cutting-edge technologies such as Direct Carrier Billing (DCB). This is an online mobile payment method, designed to enable users to make purchases by charging payments to their mobile phone carrier bill.
“At the same time, being at the cutting edge also means facing new threats,” he says. “We were particularly concerned in 2020 and estimated that almost one in three subscriptions made via DCB payments in SA were fraudulent. We also found that frauds that had already been identified up to five years ago – such as clickjacking – and which could be easily combated, had not been. This situation was unacceptable for the end consumer and for players in the DCB sector.”
Lotfi notes that the partnership means that in the short-term, Evina has enabled WASPA to identify the most significant vulnerabilities in the South African value chain and to act as a whistle-blower and mediator with the relevant players. Evina’s BrandProtect technology is now able to help WASPA identify bad traffic sources that create unwanted subscriptions and thus customers complaints. The association is then able to suggest to the relevant players that they clean up their ad spending and ultimately improve their brand image and reputation, while also saving money.
“This is a strong first step in protecting DCB technology in South Africa. In the medium term, this will undoubtedly enable WASPA to coordinate the response of all the players facing fraud in the DCB market: merchants, payment aggregators and operators,” says Lotfi. “Now, it is a question of protecting each player beyond this first level of security. Misleading ads and bad traffic sources are only one part of the problem. A lot of fraud is technical, meaning coming from bad programs subscribing users without their consent. Payment pages must also be protected with realtime transaction validation solutions capable of blocking any fraudulent payment attempt. We have achieved this with Vodacom, which now protects its users very effectively with DCBprotect.”
DCB technology is certainly incredible, adds Ilonka Badenhorst, managing executive for WASPA, noting its frictionless payment paths, unique conversion rates far superior to those of the credit card and its ability to pay to unbanked or underbanked people. Protecting it effectively, she points out, means allowing it to fully deploy its strengths and take advantage of the growth it offers.
“It is important for all in this industry to understand that as the number of protected players increases, so does the overall security and trust in the DCB technology. After all, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” she says.
“There is an undeniable competitive issue at play here too: as operators, payment aggregators and merchants protect themselves by installing realtime transaction validation solutions and gain privileged partnerships that allow them to increase their flows, the unprotected players find themselves alone to be affected by fraud. The fraudsters, in turn, redouble their efforts on them, which further degrades their brand image and deprives them of key partnerships.
“It’s also worth mentioning that all types of players benefit from this service: service providers, by optimising their media buys, aggregators, by monitoring the traffic sent to operators, and of course operators, who are able to secure their brand image, protect their subscribers and boost their growth.
“The increasing security of the South African DCB market is a prerequisite to allow DCB to reach its full potential. For the consumer, this means a more secure and inclusive frictionless payment. For operators, it is an opportunity to fully integrate the fintech sector of tomorrow. And for South Africa as a whole, it is an opportunity to build national payment champions capable of competing with the leading players.”