Mobile Money Limited, a subsidiary of MTN Ghana has revealed that it has deployed artificial intelligence (AI) to help fight and reduce the increasing occurrence of fraudulent activities in its electronic money system.
The company revealed that it was investing about US$2.5 million to strengthen the mobile money platform and to build the robotic system that could detect the activities of fraudsters and terminate them to help reduce the flood at which those activities led to customers losing their funds.
According to the company’s General Manager, Mr Eli Hini, the deployment of AI, which used robotics to perform tasks traditionally reserved for humans, and the consequent planned investment were some of the initiatives the firm was using to counter the fraud threat.
Mr Hini also used the opportunity to speak on the dynamics behind the strong growth in the mobile money business in the country. As MTN remains the market leader, its focus is to impact lives, build financial inclusion and the march towards a digital economy and how the country could harness the potential fully to benefit people and the country.
Weakest link
Mr. Hini also noted that the company was concerned about the increasing rate at which customers were complaining about losing their funds to fraudsters but said such losses could not occur if the customers did not fall prey to the antics of the scammers.
He said although the company had invested heavily in educational materials, including flyers, jingles, and videos to sensitize customers and the general public to the activities of fraudsters, the incidence persisted.
The General Manager blamed it on the inability of customers to detect the scammers and their schemes, highlighting that such lack defect represented “the weakest link” in the fight against fraud in the mobile money business.
“Why are we not saying that the mobile money platform has been hacked but we are saying that the customers are being affected? You see, in everything, attackers will go for the weakest link.
“The customers here are the weakest link because they are allowing themselves to be used by not paying attention to the educational videos and the rest,” he said.
In effect, he, therefore, called on customers of the network to be cautious of how they got themselves involved with persons purporting to be MTN staff.
Collaboration with the Police
Already, the company had enjoyed some enormous support from the Ghana Police Service as it has helped to fight the menace.
He said the collaboration had led to increased swoops upon intelligence, resulting in the arrest of over 40 perpetrators this year alone.
He said the swoops and the arrests had revealed that some people had taken the perpetration of fraud on mobile money users their job which they engaged in throughout the day. Adding that the company had noticed a reduction in the number of reported cases and expressed the hope that the trend would endure as more awareness was being created on how to avoid being scammed.
Regarding how much has been lost as a result of the activities of fraudsters, Mr Hini could not immediately provide the figures, except to say that the amount involved was insignificant.
“But that is not the point because any amount lost is still a concern,” he said.
Activities of MOMO
Meanwhile, mobile money transactions rose by more than 440 per cent in the first half of this year following the outbreak of COVID-19 that initiated transactions without the use of cash.
Data released by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) showed that the volume of transactions rose from 2.5 million in the first half of 2019 to 13.4 million in the same period this year.
