Rinchi
TechInAfrica – The Southern African Fraud Prevention Services (SAFPS) is currently preparing to launch Secure Citizen app to address challenges caused by fraud presents. According to recent statistics, around 77% of South African companies deal with fraud every day.
The Secure Citizen app allows public members to provide the SAFPS with biometrics, including recordings and photographs all by themselves. Then, SAFPS will store the information and record it.
Executive Director of the SAFPS, Manie van Schalkwyk, explained: “The real benefit of the Secure Citizen App will come in when members of the public apply for credit at financial institutions which are SAFPS members. Once a credit application has been made, the financial institution then contacts the SAFPS and advises them that a credit application has been made.
An SMS is then sent to the individual who applied for credit; once the individual indicates that they did apply for credit, and the SAFPS receives the first indication that it is not dealing with a fraudster, the biometric information that was provided by the financial institution is checked against the biometric information that the SAFPS has on record. If the individual indicates that they did not apply for credit, or the verification of the biometrics fails, then we know that we are dealing with a fraudster from the outset.”
The Secure Citizen app offers major benefits to financial institutions like banks, especially because they have to deal with fraud daily. Through the app, this issue can be addressed, thus, will give costumers peace of mind.
“Secure Citizen will assist the insurance company to ensure that they are dealing with the correct individual which should eliminate multiple claims in different names,” said van Schalkwyk.
Van Schalkwyk highlighted the role of technology in addressing fraud. Technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning are the growing technologies which bring benefits to our daily lives.
“AI is the future of fraud prevention. It is already becoming big businesses and will be a $60 billion industry in five years’ time. This will provide an even bigger blow to the battle against fraud, specifically in the online space,” said van Schalkwyk.
As technology becomes advanced and the world is increasingly interconnected, there’s a growing demand on the need for protection against fraud. The Secure Citizen App is one of the SAFPS’ efforts to meet this demand. Furthermore, the company believes that the app helps to beat fraudsters.
Source: itnewsafrica.com
