In a week of not-great telecom earnings news, revenue assurance and fraud prevention vendor Subex stands out – growing profits by over 400% and revenue by over 60%. What gives? As we’ve pointed out recently in conversations with the vendor (CP: Q&A: Subex offers insights into the battle against mobile money fraud), the rise of mobile money is being followed closely by the rise of mobile money crime. Subex’s results point to the fact that telcos are now focused on being able to address this issue.
It has always been acknowledged in the world of fraud prevention that the only truly secure system is one that is unconnected. In a world of ubiquitous connections, then, we are doomed to be playing catch up with the bad guys – because they will be watching and following developments such as mobile money, NFC and M2M and focusing on the dark side.
Sadly this is not just conjecture. In the same 24 hour period that Subex released its financial data, the US Government was raising alarms over the success of the flagship mobile money development in Kenya, stating that it posed a threat to international security and was potentially a major set back against the war on cybercrime. With 16 million customers already using the service, let us hope that this does not set back the roll out, which is transforming the local economy there.
With smartphones increasingly being used to manage money – albeit in different ways in different environments – the very fact that criminals now have a much larger target than simply getting access to a customer’s phone account or personal details, but to his bank account too – provides an irresistible incentive (CP: The tipping point for NFC and M2M – are we ready for the bad guys?).
Let us hope the forces of law and order and the tools provided by the likes of Subex continue to drive their growth.