Bouygues Telecom, Free, Orange and SFR to provide two network APIs to help online businesses combat fraud and digital identity theft
December 3, 2024, Paris: As part of the global GSMA Open Gateway initiative, France's four major mobile operators (Bouygues Telecom, Free, Orange and SFR) announced today that they will join forces to provide services designed to help application developers and businesses combat fraud online and protect the digital identities of mobile customers.
The operators are launching two network programmable application interfaces (APIs) for the French market (KYC Match and SIM Swap) developed according to the new CAMARA standard, which aims to align specifications between mobile operators. France is the first country in the world where all four major operators are launching the API called KYC Match, which strengthens the way online businesses can verify the identities of new customers. Several of the operators are also making number verification available to the developer community.
France has seen a 37% increase in online transactions since the Covid pandemic, totaling €2.35 billion in 2023, and 77% of them are carried out via mobile devices. But in addition, 80% of French companies say they have experienced online fraud attempts and 45% say that online fraud has increased in the last 12 months. The number of cases of digital identity theft has increased by 40% in the last four years, according to figures from the French Ministry of the Interior. These new APIs will help protect consumers' mobile identities by adding an additional layer of defense against fraudsters.
The APIs have been developed and rigorously tested in the French market with several financial institutions, such as BforBank (the online branch of Credit Agricole) or Fortuneo (subsidiary of Credit Mutuel Arkéa), using KYC Match to select new clients in partnership. with DQE software. More than twenty companies in France are already using telecom APIs to help prevent account takeover fraud and verify customer identities during transaction and onboarding processes.
By bringing together operators from around the world, the GSMA Open Gateway initiative facilitates the design of digital products capable of working seamlessly on all devices, regardless of country or operator. Since its launch last year, 67 mobile network groups, representing a total of 278 networks and three quarters of mobile connections, have joined the initiative along with 26 channel partners. Developers can also take advantage of the new network capabilities offered by mobile networks using unique access points, called APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), that allow developers to easily connect their services to these network capabilities. The service's APIs are available through the CAMARA repository, an open source project of the Linux Foundation and a fundamental part of the GSMA Open Gateway initiative.
The two services, or APIs, that French operators make available to business developers are:
- KYC Match: Allow companies to verify information provided by the customer against verified records maintained by the user's mobile network operator, as part of their KYC (Know Your Customer) process. This cross-match may include details such as mobile phone number, name, zip code, address, date of birth and email address. Importantly, no personally identifiable information (PII) is shared in the process, ensuring user privacy while allowing for secure and accurate verification.
- SIM swap: Used to check if a given phone number has recently changed SIM cards. This helps mitigate account takeover attacks, where fraudsters take control of the account owner's SIM card using social engineering techniques and stolen personal data. For example, at the time of a financial transaction, a financial institution can check whether the relationship between the customer's phone number and SIM card has recently changed, which helps it decide whether to approve the transaction or not.
The operators intend to include a third API, which some are already providing, called:
- Number verification: which can be used to verify a customer's mobile number providing the next generation of strong authentication and user experience. It's a simple evolution path for any business using mobile numbers and SMS one-time passwords. Instead of relying on SMS, number verification can be activated automatically and seamlessly to verify a user's identity. This not only improves the user experience but also mitigates potential issues such as users not receiving an SMS or facing difficulties due to limited familiarity with the technology.
The French operators are aiming for a commercial launch in the first half of 2025. They will discuss their launch plans with the GSMA today at the Apidays Paris 2024 developer conference, as well as at MWC Barcelona in March 2025.
Henry Calvert, Head of Networks at GSMA, said: “GSMA Open Gateway has gone from strength to strength since its launch last year. This aligned market launch of CAMARA APIs by leading operators in France will make it easier to protect people from the growing threat of fraud. The initiative benefits businesses, mobile operators and their customers, saving developers time, money and effort while enabling the rapid launch of innovative new services.”
Chrystel Abadie Truchet, Deputy General Manager in charge of Strategy, Development and Communication at Bouygues Telecom, stated: “Bouygues Telecom is pleased to launch these new APIs in CAMERA format. This reflects our ability to innovate and work together with other French operators to protect our customers from fraud. A testament to this work is that France has become the first country where all operators offer KYC Match.”
Rui Frazao, CTO of Free – Group iliad, said: “As a member of the GSMA Open Gateway initiative, Group iliad is committed to helping developers and cloud providers quickly improve and deploy services through a common standard set of APIs available worldwide. This unified ecosystem will help unlock the full potential of 5G networks, which is in line with Iliad Group's strategy to democratize access to the latest technologies as soon as they are available. The combination of advanced 5G and API opens mobile networks to new use cases in many industries: fintech, mobility, gaming, entertainment and others.”
Laetitia Orsini, executive vice president of Consumer Affairs at Orange France, said: “Orange France is proud to join the GSMA Open Gateway initiative with other French mobile operators; Orange was one of the first to support the project at GSMA and Linux Foundation. We believe that joining forces to develop APIs to a common standard, Camara, will revolutionize the way developers use networking capabilities and services by making them faster and easier to access. Many banks and financial service providers in France have already implemented our identity APIs to help combat fraud. “We are convinced that Open Gateway and Camara will allow us to scale our existing business and create new use cases around network-based APIs.”
Olivier Tailfer, Chief Technology Officer at SFR, said: “SFR is proud to contribute to the GSMA Open Gateway program, which will help boost the API market in France. We are convinced that the fight against fraud, which is a priority for SFR, involves the development of APIs and we are delighted with this initiative.”
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