Before the year is over and everyone is off for their Christmas vacation, it is worth having a peek at the most recent developments in business messaging.
China’s first legislation against telecom and online fraud is now in effect
China’s first telecom and online fraud law was designed to combat the long-persisting issue of scammers preying upon the population and causing massive financial losses.
Adopted back in September, the Anti-Telecom and Online Fraud Law mandates that service providers must ensure that internal systems for controlling fraud risks are in place. Failing to do so could lead to penalties or suspension of such businesses, while fraudsters can be subject to detention, fines, and criminal liabilities.
The law is also supposed to strengthen private data protection efforts and will apply to fraud targeting Chinese citizens at home and abroad.
A2P messaging is witnessing growing interest from SMEs
While A2P text messaging has traditionally been reserved for large enterprises, a growing number of SMEs now use it to communicate with their consumers, revealed a recent whitepaper by Juniper Research. The motivation for smaller enterprises to adopt A2P messaging is believed to originate from consumer demand — people have gotten accustomed to using their preferred channels. This shift appeared from rapid digitalisation following the Covid-19 pandemic and has increased interest in adopting CPaaS amongst SMEs.
Juniper Research also expects the global mobile business messaging market to grow by 63% — from $48 billion in 2022 to $78 billion by 2027. Interestingly, it’s boosted by enterprise adoption of Rich Communication Services, with businesses harnessing the end-to-end encryption and verified sender identities RCS provides to reduce messaging fraud.
The CPaaS market is expected to grow by USD 10.19 billion
between 2021 and 2026. According to the “Communication Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) Market by Component and Geography – Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026” report by Technavio, this can happen due to the increasing demand for network systems that can enable smooth communications across multiple end-user industries. Interestingly, healthcare providers looking for low-cost cloud-based solutions largely contribute to this growth.
North America will be the key region with 64% of the market’s growth during the forecast period — mostly due to the U
Operators are to lose USD 2.5 Billion to messengers in 2023
According to Juniper Research, next year, mobile operators will likely lose approximately 2.5 billion USD of business messaging revenues to OTT apps like WhatsApp, WeChat and the like. With enterprises embracing rich media marketing campaigns, promotional traffic will account for 30% of this revenue loss.
Still, based on the A2P Messaging market report from Juniper Research, the total number of SMS business messages will grow from 1.6 trillion in 2022 to 1.7 trillion in 2023, thanks to the channel’s high open rates and subscriber reach. The use of SMS is expected to remain particularly strong in the retail sector.
At the same time, it is estimated that the total number of operator-led RCS business messages sent will also grow from 161 billion in 2022 to 219 billion in 2023. The main challenge for the operators would be to keep the reasonable pricing, encouraging enterprise adoption of operator-led RCS business messaging.
UK’s Biggest Anti-fraud Operation: Police Text 70,000 Victims
According to BBC, detectives from the UK’s Metropolitan Police have started sending text messages to 70,000 mobile phone users who are suspected to be victims of a sophisticated banking scam. The recipients are asked to register their details on the Action Fraud website as officers build cases against potential fraudsters.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley emphasised an “enormous endeavour” in collecting evidence after an online fraud network discovery, with over 100 people arrested and one person charged so far.
Some 200,000 people in the UK may have been victims of the scam, losing thousands of pounds and, in one case, £3m. The fraud involved scammers calling people randomly, pretending to be a bank and “reporting” suspicious activity on their accounts. They posed as Barclays, Santander, Lloyds, NatWest, Halifax, First Direct, Nationwide, HSBC, and TSB employees.
They then encouraged people to disclose security information and, through technology, accessed features such as one-time passcodes to clear accounts of funds.