Posted by Todd Berner – Developer Relations Engineer
Cybercriminals continue to invest in sophisticated financial fraud that has cost consumers more than $1 trillion. According to the Global Fraud Report 2023 by the Global Anti-Fraud Alliance, 78 percent of mobile users experienced at least one scam in the past year. 45 percent of those surveyed said they were experiencing more fraud in the past 12 months.
The Global Fraud Report also found that phone calls are the primary means of triggering fraud. Fraudsters frequently use social engineering techniques to trick mobile users.
A key area where these scammers want individuals to act is in the devices that give them their money. This means that financial services are frequently targeted. As cybercriminals push forward with more scams, and their reach expands globally, it's important to create a response.
One such developer is Monzo, which can solve scam calls through a unique impersonation detection feature in their app.
Monzo's innovative approach
In the year Founded in 2015, Monzo is the largest digital bank in the UK with a presence in the US. Their mission is to make money for everyone who wants to be the one app for their customers to manage their entire financial life.
Impersonation fraud is an issue the entire industry is grappling with and Monzo decided to take action and introduce an industry-first tool. Impersonation scams are a very common social engineering technique where a criminal can pretend to be someone else and encourage you to send them the money. These scams often involve an urgent pretense involving a risk to the user's finances or an opportunity to gain quick wealth. Through this push, fraudsters convince users to disable security protections and ignore proactive warnings about potential malware, scams, and phishing.
Call status feature
Android offers users a number of spam and phishing protections, including caller ID and spam protection in the phone's Google app. The Monzo team wanted to increase that protection by using their home phone systems. By integrating with the mobile application infrastructure, you can help ensure that your customers are communicating with a member of the Monzo customer support team in real-time in a privacy-protected manner.
If someone claims to be a Monzo customer from a bank, users can log into the app to verify this. In the privacy and security section of the Monzo app, users can view Monzo call status, which lets them know there's an active call going on with a real Monzo team member.
We have built this industry-first feature using our world-class technology to provide an extra layer of comfort and safety. Our hope is that this will prevent Monzo customers from experiencing impersonation fraud situations in the first place and impacting customers.
– Priyesh Patel, Senior Staff Engineer, Monzo Security Group
Maintaining customer information.
If a user doesn't speak with a member of the Monzo customer support team, they'll see that and some useful information. If the 'Monzo Call Status' is showing that you are not talking to Monzo, the Call Status feature will immediately tell you to hang up and report to their team. Customers can initiate a fraud report directly from the call status feature in the app.
If a real call is in progress, the customer will see the information.
How does it work?
Monzo has integrated a few systems together to help inform their customers. A cross-functional team was held to generate solutions.
Monzo's in-house technology stack means that the systems that power their app and customer service phone calls can easily communicate with each other. This allowed them to connect the two and share customer service calls with their app accurately and in real time.
The team then worked to identify edge issues like when the user is offline. In this situation, Monzo recommends that customers do not talk to anyone claiming to be from Monzo until they have reconnected to the Internet and checked the call status in the app.
Results and next steps
The feature has proven to be highly effective in retaining customers, and has received universal praise from industry experts and consumer champions.
“Since we launched Call Status, we've received an average of around 700 suspected fraud reports from our customers every month. Now it's live and we're always looking for ways to improve Call Status by helping to protect customers – like making it more visible and easier to find if you're on a call and quickly verify who you're talking to. That's what they say.”
– Priyesh Patel, Senior Staff Engineer, Monzo Security Group
Final advice
Monzo continues to invest and innovate to prevent fraud. The Call Status feature brings together both technological innovation and customer education to achieve success and gives customers a way to catch fraudsters in the act.
A layered security approach is a good way to protect users. Android and Google Play offer permissions like app sandboxing, Google Play attack protection, and privacy protection, and Monzo has built one more in a privacy-friendly way.
Check out these resources to learn more about Android and Play Security and further protect your app: