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Press Release: Tuesday, February 11 2020, 12:30 CAT | Source: Orillion Solutions Limited

Orillion Solutions Limited and the Risk & Assurance Group (RAG) have announced the successful completion of the first phase of their blockchain-based consortium collaboration to combat fraud within the global telecommunications industry. 

As the world becomes more connected, so does the rapid increase in telecom fraud, which is a complex and evolving field of criminal activity and a low-risk alternative to traditional methods of financial crime, costing today’s world some US$32.7 billion (€29 billion) annually, according to a joint report published the by Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre and Trend Micro.

Orillion Solutions developed this world-first telco fraud blockchain technology using the Linux Foundations HyperLedger Fabric architecture for use by the RAG consortium of approved telcos and vendors, aiming to change the way telcos combat fraud and ultimately help to protect their customers.

The blockchain solution allows fraud intelligence to be securely shared between the consortium members in real-time and use this combined intelligence to prevent and detect fraud more effectively. The hive mind approach is a proven system of symbiotic intelligence used by effective systems in nature and the Digital Information Age.

During the first phase of the project, the RAG consortium piloted the use of blockchain technology to collaborate in tackling wangiri fraud, which impacts millions of mobile telephony customers every day across the world. Creating a distributed wangiri numbering ledger between trusted industry sources allowed consortium members to more proactively monitor incoming fraud from these numbers and take preventative action before calls are received by their customers.  

Highlights of the pilot were: 

  • FIRST to market – from concept to implementation in just 14 weeks.
  • CONNECTEDNESS – twelve network peers supporting 35 global entities.
  • CUSTOMER FIRST – over 650 million customers worldwide being protected.
  • COVERAGE – collecting fraud data from close to 90% of countries globally.
  • SHARED INTELLIGENCE – over 20,000 fraudulent sources shared. 

Anthony Sani, the Executive Director of Orillion Solutions believes that blockchain use cases need to look beyond technology to achieve success. “Start with the end customer and what value this creates for them. Protecting customers from fraud is great for all customers. Secondly, building and scaling the consortium is the toughest challenge to overcome in blockchain projects. Our partnership with the Risk & Assurance Group and other industry vendors has been instrumental in this regard. RAG have been pioneers in driving industry collaboration, and our partnership with them brings credibility, independence, and trust to interested consortium members. The potential for blockchain to change how fraud is addressed by industry is really exciting which we’re looking forward to continuing with RAG in the next project phase.

Eric’s feedback on the pilot – “By working with Orillion Solutions, RAG has used new technology to revive an old aspiration. The aspiration is for telcos to come together to collectively identify the source of fraud. The technology is blockchain, which has significant advantages for information sharing in this context, compared to persuading businesses to upload data to a centralized database. Finally, we are developing a model where a variety of suppliers find it advantageous to simplify the task of exchanging the telco’s data, with the result that we reduce much of the cost and burden associated with maintaining other collective repositories of intelligence.”

“We believe the wangiri blockchain initiative will lead to a fundamental shift in how the telecoms sector thinks about fraud. So far the overriding metaphor is for individual telcos to make themselves more resistant to fraud so the criminals will choose to plague less secure telcos instead. With this model, the assumption is that the telcos are prey and the fraudsters will always persist in feeding on the easiest prey they can find. Now we can use blockchain to develop a hive intelligence, working together to pinpoint and eradicate the sources of fraud for the collective good of telcos and their customers. Instead of just defending themselves from attack, we will make it possible to combine intelligence and other resources so we can wipe out the criminals that parasitically feed on the telecoms industry and ordinary phone users.”

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This article is a Press Release received from Orillion Solutions Limited. Global Crypto did not receive any form of compensation for its publication, and as this material is deemed newsworthy for the Southern African blockchain industry, it was thus published accordingly.

Image by Alberto Adán from Pixabay 

James Preston is the Executive Editor of Global Crypto. He is a writer and media commentator who has been reporting on how the Tech industry will make the world a better place for 14 years, with a large following on South African radio. He is an early adopter of Bitcoin, and began reporting on its revolutionary capabilities in late 2014. Philosophical by nature, he is intrigued by how the world works, and in turn, how it can be bettered. James believes wholeheartedly that the world can become as close to perfect as we humans can imagine, but it will take a lot of effort (and time) to get there. He believes his life purpose is to inspire people to believe this, and find their place in helping humanity achieve it. James regularly does talks on emerging technology and its impact on society at Universities, global conferences, and events. To invite him to speak at your event, or comment for your media outlet, email info@globalcrypto.tv