Safaricom eyeing new measures in SIM Swap Fraud fight

Safaricom will look into finger and facial recognition in its bid to curb the SIM Swap Fraud that had for a while created an air of mistrust between the giant telco and its close to 30 million subscribers.

The company also said it will suspend mobile money transactions for a period of time following a SIM Swap in a move aimed at preventing fraudsters from accessing customer funds held in M-Pesa accounts.

“SIM fraud has been a huge pain point for our customers and we have taken these concerns very seriously… in the next couple of months, we will put in place measures that will help us address this issue as we also work closely with DCI and the police,” said Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore.

These proposed changes alongside others were revealed by Safaricom during the giant telco’s Annual General Meeting on Friday August 31.

Safaricom also said it will unveil ways of enabling customers to manage their data usage.

Subscribers will be able to choose their preferred internet speeds while browsing. The company also said it will rollout a new measure whereby notifications of abnormal spikes of data will be forthcoming. Safaricom said these spikes usually occur during auto updates of apps and software as well as during streaming and archiving of multimedia content.

The giant telco said that in cases where the notification fails and a subscriber’s data is depleted unexpectedly, Safaricom will reimburse customer’s data bundle.

Mr. Collymore said, “We have received numerous complaints from our customers that their data is being depleted too fast giving them a bad experience. My commitment to our customers going forward is that we will deliver a more transparent and user friendly data experience.”

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Safaricom also said it will announce new data packages within the coming months.