By Sellah Singini
LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has urged players in the digital financial services to raise security in order to protect Malawians from fraudsters.
MACRA’s Director General Daud Suleman said this on Thursday during the opening of a Digital Financial Service Security Clinic in Lilongwe.
Suleman said there is need for such players as banks and mobile money service providers to find ways and means of strengthening security and ensuring that Malawians – when transacting through digital platforms – have confidence their money will not be stolen by fraudsters.
“Almost all banks in Malawi provide online banking. We also have two major mobile money providers, TNM Mpamba and Airtel Money.
“On the other hand, we have 12 million Malawians who are able to do transactions through the banks and mobile money. Therefore, the more the people are exposed to digital financial services, the higher the risk to fraud,” he said.
Suleman said as one way of limiting cases of fraud, MACRA has revised the SIM card regulations that will require re-registration of all SIM cards and handsets so that all SIM cards and handsets should be linked to biometric print, as well as linked to national identity cards.
“Further to that, we are also rolling out a system that we call Central Equipment Identify Register. The system will register all handsets against national identity cards against a person. It will also limit the number of SIM cards that can be registered to a person. It will be ten SIM cards per person,” he added.
He further said the system will not allow any person who wants to register more than ten SIM cards and that the system will automatically shut down any handset involved in fraud activities.
In his remarks, Programme Coordinator for International Telecommunications Unit (ITU), Vijay Mauree, said the overall objective of the Clinic was to share security recommendations developed at international telecommunications with regard to securing the telecommunications infrastructure and repayment system infrastructure when it comes to digital financial services.