Latest news with #SmileID
Zawya
18-02-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Winners announced for the Africa Tech Summit Awards 2025
Nairobi, Kenya, Africa Tech Summit Awards announced the 2025 winners, recognising the leading entrepreneurs and ventures shaping the tech industry across the continent. The awards ceremony was held during the seventh edition of Africa Tech Summit Nairobi, powered by Raenest, which connected over 1,600 tech leaders from more than 65 countries to do business. Lauren Adair, Director of Africa Tech Summit, said: 'The Awards were created to celebrate tech companies driving business and growth across a range of sectors and it was fantastic to host so many finalists doing this, all in one room. A huge thank you to our independent judging panel and to everyone who joined us in recognising their achievements, cheering them on and closing the seventh Africa Tech Summit Nairobi on a high.' Winners of the Africa Tech Summit Awards are: Agritech Award - Mazao AgClimate Limited (Tanzania): With over 50 million smallholder farmers at risk of losing arable land due to the overuse of synthetic fertilizers and deforestation, MazaoHub aims to restore soil health, reduce fertilizer dependency, and prevent environmental collapse, enabling both ecological balance and food security. AI Award - Cassava Technologies (South Africa): Cassava Technologies is pioneering AI-driven infrastructure to enhance connectivity, cybersecurity, and cloud services. Their innovations ensure businesses and individuals can access secure, scalable, and affordable digital solutions, fueling Africa's digital economy. Climate Tech Award - Sabi (Nigeria): Sabi's Technology Rails for African Commodity Exchange (TRACE) platform is a blockchain-enabled climate technology that delivers real-time traceability, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) compliance, and carbon tracking for commodities like cocoa, lithium, and copper. Cross Border Payments Award - Flutterwave (Nigeria): Flutterwave's Send App simplifies international remittances, helping individuals and businesses transfer money seamlessly across 35+ countries, including the UK, US, Canada, Nigeria, and Kenya in minutes. Digital Commerce Award - OmniRetail (Nigeria): Retail trade in Africa is highly fragmented, with nearly 90 per cent of retailers relying on the traditional distribution system. OmniRetail is digitizing the retail sector by simplifying distribution and enabling better access to essential goods. EdTech Award - Ikusasa Technology Solutions (South Africa): Championing inclusive education, Ikusasa Technology Solutions is digitizing vocational training through its SMART Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) initiative. Enterprise Award - Smile ID (Nigeria): Africa faces significant challenges in identity verification, with over 400 million individuals lacking reliable IDs. Smile ID addresses this gap by providing innovative solutions that verify identities in real time, reduce fraud risks, and enable secure transactions. FemTech Award - My Pregnancy Journey (South Africa): The first African-focused maternal digital health app, offering culturally relevant pregnancy tracking, local health expert connections, and a digital ecosystem that supports women from pregnancy through postpartum. FinTech Award - HUB2 (Mauritius): Cross-border payments in Francophone Africa remain complex, with over 100 mobile money operators and numerous banks working independently. This fragmentation makes it challenging for businesses to navigate and integrate payment systems. HUB2 addresses this issue by providing a single API that consolidates mobile money, bank transfers, card payments, and cryptocurrency, simplifying the transaction process. Health Tech Award - Zuri Health (Kenya): Is a pioneering digital healthcare platform that ensures affordable and accessible healthcare across Africa. With virtual consultations, AI-powered diagnostics, pharmacy delivery, and chronic care management, Zuri Health serves patients via mobile apps, WhatsApp, SMS, and websites. Web3 Award - MiniPay (Nigeria): Millions of people in emerging markets lack access to essential financial services, and many find blockchain and cryptocurrency products intimidating. Integrated into Opera Mini, MiniPay enables fast and low-cost peer-to-peer transactions using USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT), and Celo Dollar (cUSD). Female Tech Innovator - Chinwe Udo-Davis (Nigeria): Chinwe is the Co-Founder & CEO of Instollar, a green energy marketplace that addresses the limited access to clean, reliable energy in Africa, particularly in rural and underserved areas. InstallHer trains women in solar installation, empowering them with skills and creating job opportunities in the green economy. Young Tech Innovator - Maxwell Opondo (Kenya): He developed Zerobionic, a robotic arm that responds to sign language, enabling real-time communication and interaction for students with hearing impairments. Africa Tech Summit Nairobi, powered by Raenest, featured a range of exciting activities, including the launch of the Africa Climate Tech and Sustainability report, developed in partnership with The Sixth D and Mercy Corps Ventures. This report offers valuable insights from leading practitioners investing in and implementing climate tech innovations across Africa. Additionally, the summit marked the inauguration of Project Jacaranda, a groundbreaking collaboration between Sirona's Direct Air Capture and Cella's permanent carbon storage technologies in Kenya. Industry leaders will convene at Africa Tech Summit London on June 6th, 2025 at the London Stock Exchange. About Africa Tech Summit Nairobi Africa Tech Summit Nairobi (ATSNBO) is a leading African tech event providing insight and networking with the African tech ecosystem. ATSNBO brings together tech leaders, MNOs, banks, international investors, entrepreneurs, governments, trade bodies, media and leading ventures to drive investment and business in African tech.
Voice of America
13-02-2025
- Voice of America
AI-driven biometric fraud surges in Africa, fueling financial crimes
A new report says the emergence of cheap artificial intelligence tools is leading to a wave of biometric fraud in Africa. The report says fraudsters are using AI to create fake documents, voices, and images that facilitate identity theft and financial crimes. In July 2024, Japhet Ndubi, a Kenyan journalist, lost his phone and could not trace it. He replaced the SIM card, bought a new phone, and went on with his life. Four days later, while on a lunch break, he received a text alerting him that he had sent money to a certain number. "Now I am using a new phone. When I saw money was sent to a certain number, I was surprised because I have my phone here. I called Safaricom to inquire, 'How come some money is sent to a certain number without my authorization?' It's when they told me, 'Are you sure you are not the one who has withdrawn? Because we see a transaction has been carried out and sent to this number, and we can see you have used your fingerprints to withdraw the money,'" he said. The fraudsters even took out a loan that took him months to pay off. Authorities never made an arrest even though his phone was recovered. Nudbi was a victim of biometric fraud — a type of criminal activity where someone copies another person's unique characteristics, like their voice or fingerprints, to impersonate them and gain access to their devices or financial accounts. Smile ID is a U.S.-based company with offices in Kenya that develops software to protect people's privacy. A report it released late last month says cases of document forgery and deepfakes are on the rise across Africa, as are simpler phishing attempts — all in an effort to steal money from innocent victims. The Smile ID researchers found that fraudsters especially targeted vulnerable people in low-literacy regions through phishing, data breaches, and making purchases through illicit sources. Stolen data is then exploited to create fraudulent bank accounts to be used for money laundering operations. Joshua Kumah, a Ghanaian, received a fake text claiming that money had been transferred to his mobile banking account. The text led to him losing control of his account and SIM card. "The person told me to follow a short code that the money would be transferred back to him, so I did that without paying attention to the details. So, by the time I realized it was already too late, I had already given him access to my sim card, so I had to report to cancel that sim card. So, I lost the money I had on that sim. I had to start all over again," he said. Ndubi is still in shock at how his fingerprints were used to access money through his mobile phone. He says that has changed how he uses the device. "I was very surprised that they were able to use fingerprints, and I kept asking the telecom provider how they were able to access it but they were not able to tell me. So, I even lost faith in the Mpesa mobile banking application; actually, I have never used it," he said. To prevent fraud, authorities and businesses now sometimes insist that people present themselves physically and produce valid identification cards to prove their identities. As for average Kenyans, many are trying to avoid using mobile apps on their phones, and are checking with banks and telecom operators about any transactions made in and out of their accounts.
Associated Press
29-01-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Gen AI is Fueling a New Wave of Fraud in Africa, 2025 Smile ID Report Reveals
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jan. 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Smile ID, Africa's leading provider of identity verification solutions, has released its 2025 Digital Identity Fraud in Africa Report, highlighting critical fraud trends across the continent. The report uncovers sophisticated fraud tactics exploiting vulnerabilities in fintech platforms and digital ecosystems, accelerated by emerging technologies such as Generative AI, deepfakes, and insider-assisted schemes. The report also offers clear, actionable strategies to help business leaders protect trust, revenue, and maintain operational stability in 2025. Drawing on anonymised data from over 110 million identity verification checks conducted by Smile ID across Central, East, West, and Southern Africa in 2024, the report highlights ongoing challenges and opportunities. The widespread adoption of biometric verification over traditional textual methods has significantly strengthened fraud prevention, driving the overall fraud rate during KYC checks down to 25% in 2024 (a 4-percentage-point decrease). However, this year-over-year progress has prompted fraudsters to develop more sophisticated attack methods targeting biometric systems, resulting in millions of dollars in fraud losses across key African markets. Smile ID continues to tackle unique threats African businesses face when onboarding users, such as identity farming, insider-assisted account takeovers, and advanced document forgeries. The report revealed significant regional variations in fraud methods across Africa. East Africa led in document fraud cases, reporting the highest combined rejection rate at 27% in 2024, driven by the region's reliance on documents. West Africa emerged as the epicentre of biometric fraud, showing the highest incidents of spoofing and face-match inconsistencies, with notable vulnerability to AI-powered fraud attempts. Central Africa maintained a rejection rate of 22% [up by 3%], while Southern Africa saw rates rise from 9% to 21%, primarily attributed to fraud attempts involving the retiring green book. Speaking on the report, Mark Straub, CEO of Smile ID, said: 'The future of fraud prevention lies in adaptability. While AI provides fraudsters with powerful new tools, it also helps security practitioners harness global intelligence to counter zero-day attacks and automate processes that were once manual. 'Fintech platforms with weak KYC protocols remain the most vulnerable, as these bad actors use identity farming to create fraudulent accounts that conceal the origins of illicit funds. Tackling these vulnerabilities requires collaboration between industries, governments, and technology providers to create a safer digital ecosystem.' Founded in 2017, Smile ID has revolutionised identity verification in Africa, completing over 200 million verification checks by November 2024. As the continent's leading provider of digital identity verification, fraud detection, and KYC compliance solutions, the company delivers scalable, Africa-focused tools optimised for real-time onboarding, anti-fraud measures, and AI-driven identity verification. here.
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Surge in deepfakes heightens fraud risk for African businesses
Generative artificial-intelligence was behind more than a third of new biometric fraud cases in Africa last year, a report found, with a surge in deepfakes threatening the data of millions of consumers whose details are held on insecure systems. Deepfake videos used to impersonate people increased sevenfold in the second half of 2024, according to data from the Lagos-based digital verification company SmileID. The seven-year-old startup vets customer identities for hundreds of businesses on the continent including Uber. Smile ID found document forgery remains a sizable aspect of identity fraud, especially in East Africa where the crime rose by six percentage points last year. But generative AI has 'radically' increased manipulation opportunities, posing fresh challenges for security and anti-money laundering enforcement, chief executive Mark Straub told Semafor. One crime syndicate that operated on Telegram and communicated in Chinese ramped up attacks on African companies in 2024. The gang was 'a substantial, coordinated ring of attackers that were sharing hacking tools' to target fintechs on the continent as well as companies in Germany and Singapore, he said. The hackers' IP addresses suggested their locations were 'not within Africa' and their efforts seemed geared towards creating accounts they could use to move money, Straub added. Activity from the group declined after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and African law enforcement bodies were notified by SmileID, he said, but 'there are many more out there.' Growth in smartphone ownership and internet access in Africa has sped up demand for digital banks, e-commerce stores, and ride-hailing apps. But the risk of fraud that hovered over analog systems is being carried over into the digital transition. About 500 million people lack any legal ID documents in sub-Saharan Africa. But in countries where digital IDs are being introduced, some companies have failed to follow best practice, setting up ID systems before data protection and cybersecurity frameworks are in place, for instance, and exposing those systems and their users to hazards and losses. In South Africa, frequent ID requests from government agencies and service providers leave paper trails that increase the chances of identity theft, said Martin Grunewald, an executive at the verification company Secure Citizen. And the amount Nigerian financial institutions lost to fraud rose nearly six-fold to 18 billion naira ($11 million) in 2023. NIBSS, the agency that published the data, said fraud losses rose in line with the rise in digital payments. Generative AI raises the prospect of more losses from fraud in Africa. While deepfakes accounted for 7% of global identity fraud attempts, according to the London-based verification company Sumsub, this was a four-fold rise from 2023. Only the Middle East recorded a larger increase in deepfake identity fraud incidents than Africa in 2024, Sumsub found. The rise in generative AI and identity fraud has presented a lucrative business and investment opportunity for the companies working to counter it in Africa. SmileID is backed by venture capital, raising about $27 million over the past four years from Silicon Valley and African investors. YouVerify, a competitor partly based in Nigeria, has raised $5 million in recent years from a venture fund including the French telecoms giant Orange. Projections for the future size of the global identity verification market — which these startups are aiming for — range from $27 billion to $47 billion. 'Doing KYC [Know Your Customer verification checks] used to be just a compliance exercise,' Straub said. 'It really now is a security workstream [concern]. That's the big change for us.'
