There are two things in which we take particular pride at Utel. Our work, and our customers. When both are recognised by the wider telecoms industry, that’s cause for celebration!
Success in creating innovative telecoms infrastructure solutions is driven by a marriage of people and technology; great engineering teams and great customers (the people) working in tandem to harness great technology that delivers great results.
With every deployment, that’s the formula for success that, at Utel, we seek. Sometimes the results are significant enough that when we find it, they get attention beyond the traditional parameters or recognition.
That’s just happened. Our client, Telenor Global Services has been nominated for Best Anti-Fraud Innovation Global Carrier Award 2022.
Innovations in the battle against fraud are urgently needed. We can remind ourselves how serious the challenge is.
A recent survey commissioned by the European Union found that 56% of all consumers were victims of one sort of fraud or another. Of those, 15% were defrauded via their mobile phones, another 14% via their landlines. According to the Revenue Assurance and Fraud Management Survey 2020, the cost of fraud to telecoms customers/subscribers is equivalent of 2.80% of the CSPs total revenue (USD 48 bn).
With those numbers in mind, we’re incredibly proud that Telenor has shown that this tide can be stopped. Telenor’s Utel technology-based Fraud Prevention programme, built around a zero-tolerance policy, proves the point.
The programme stopped 275 million fraudulent calls and saved an estimated value of 30 million USD in 2021. Broadcasting that success to an industry desperate to find and learn about new and effective fraud prevention solutions is a good reason why industry recognition is so exciting. And there’s a third reason for our delight; trust.
The reality that trust is central to commercial success. This is manifested in a number of ways. The ability to trust in the performance, efficacy, and reliability of an innovative technology. And the trust engendered within Telenor’s customer base that their service provider was breaking new ground to protect their best interests. Collectively, those are all achievements we’re truly proud of.
With innovative Utel technology, Telenor has been able to stop unwanted/illegitimate traffic on the network and stop payments going to fraudsters to be used in financing criminal activities. It’s resulted in a 69% decrease in the total number of annual fraud disputes and a 99% decline in annual financial risk exposure over a five-year span from 2018 to 2022.
Telenor has also been able to recover 95% of all fraud disputed amounts in 2021 through credit notes from its suppliers. And as delighted as we are that the industry has recognised those achievements, we’d like to think the fraudsters have noticed them too. In fact, we’re certain they have.
