aimm News

Sam Media earns the Malaysia International Business Awards for Telecommunications

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

The company is using data science to prevent fraud in Direct Carrier Billing.

Sam Media won in the Telecommunications category of the Malaysia International Business Awards 2020, which honours exceptional international businesses based in Malaysia.

The company connects the world to premium digital services. Sam Media develops apps and browser-based digital products, like e-learning software and interactive entertainment portals. Together with monitoring partners like the French company Evina (https://www.evina.com), they are one of the pioneers in the fight against carrier billing fraud.

As a leader in innovation, it is the company’s mission to make digital products accessible to everybody on any device type. They are also growing their reach by using alternative payment solutions like carrier billing, so their suite of products can be enjoyed by all users, even those who don’t have access to traditional payment methods, such as bank accounts or credit cards.

Sam Media boasts in unlocking new markets with alternative payment methods and multi-platform compatibility. Their experienced media buy team knows how to reach millions of consumers, whilst having a strong focus on data science to improve user experience and to track down fraudulent activities.

In 2018, the company started recruiting data scientists to its Malaysian office, focusing on the analysis of consumer behavior in order to improve users’ experience within its digital products. Now, Sam Media’s data science team has picked up on another great challenge in monitoring transacties and marketing activities.

As with any payment method, fraud remains a constant companion and a source of concern.

Wherever transactions and billing are happening on a larger scale, there’s a growing likelihood that fraudsters will attempt to take a piece of the pie. Carrier billing has been no exception.

Recognizing this, the company looked for external solutions to protect its business. However, they noticed that trusting exclusively external anti-fraud solutions only gives a false sense of security. Thus, their Malaysian data science team started to connect all the dots, combining the data of the external anti-fraud solutions with the firm’s own data to better protect users.

In the past years, Sam Media has been developing its own analytical tools to get ahead of what the industry requires. Their tools are being updated and altered continuously based on the requirements in the market, whilst their data science team sets ambitious goals to keep innovating.

Alexis Bartels, CEO of Sam Media, responds to winning this award: “As a company, we have a recognition and reward culture, so we are extremely happy with this award. All credit to our data science team. I am very proud of our people.”

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sam-media.

Media Partner Post: 10 reasons why rich messaging is re-writing the rules of customer communications

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft
Post written by MEF as part of MEF Connects: Rich Communications digital event starting on the 29th September.

Rich business messaging is unleashing a new era of consumer marketing, customer care and conversational commerce. It is giving people a wider choice of channels. And it is enabling post-pandemic comms with low-human contact. This is a revolution, and every brand has questions about it. Ahead of MEF Connects Rich Communications this month, MEF ponder a few of them in their blog…read the full post

  • Rich messaging could displace the native app
  • Lots of platforms to choose from
  • Rich messaging is as easy as SaaS
  • Rich messaging will supercharge the era of the chat bot
  • Shopping inside messages? It’s coming
  • Fresh business models to suit all requirements

aimm will be co-hosting elements of the event on the 30th September and we are pleased to be able to to share the full speaker details for the event. Further details and agenda can be found here, but the full agenda will be released on the 17th September.

As part of MEF’s Future of Messaging Programme this all-new digital event brings together enterprises, brands & agencies to connect with MNOs and messaging providers to showcase the business messaging channels that are transforming customer engagement.

The 3-day global event features the latest use cases from brands revolutionising their customer engagement strategies with RCS, WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, Facebook Messenger and more. Plus, daily analyst briefings, regional deep-dives, industry roundtables, EXPO and facilitated networking sessions.

Award Nominations close today!

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

The Global Direct Carrier Billing Awards, taking place on 6 October during Global Carrier Billing Summit, will celebrate the past year’s most impressive industry achievements and developments as well as the innovative individuals driving Carrier Billing success!

Entering and winning a prestigious Global Carrier Billing Summit award guarantees that you will be seen as a leader in your field and will benefit from increased business opportunities and, especially this year, improved team morale and motivation.

PLUS, this year, it is FREE to enter! Entries close on the 8th September so don’t miss out!

mGage delivers a world-first Mobile Payments within RCS Messaging solution

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

mGage delivers a world-first Mobile Payments within RCS Messaging solution to offer a conversational commerce channel

London UK, 1 September 2020 – mGage, a leading global mobile messaging provider, today launched the first-of-its-kind solution to bring Mobile Payments within the Rich Communication Services (RCS) channel. This advanced and pioneering technology creates a seamless and richer experience for customers while delivering a strong ROI for brands. By leveraging the high engagement rates of RCS and the increased conversion rates of mobile payments it provides a ground-breaking solution within one platform.

By working closely with UK Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and the Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA) – the UK regulator for content, goods and services charged to a phone bill – mGage has inaugurated its industry-leading, innovative solution that marries the proven capabilities of RCS and Mobile Payments into a single industry-compliant solution.

“With this ground-breaking solution, RCS is now a truly conversational commerce channel that brings innovative and new ways for brands to monetise their services and allow for purchases to be made seamlessly within the RCS messaging app,” said Nick Millward, VP Europe at mGage. “By working closely with UK Mobile Operators and Regulators, charities and enterprises alike now have access to a game-changing solution that will enable them to offer fast and seamless payment journeys for additional services without compromising on the customer experience.”

According to ITProPortal, mobile commerce is forecast to account for 53.3 percent of the total commerce value by 2021. Enterprises need to seriously consider solutions that allow customers to make quick and easy payments without the need to push consumers to other applications as 80 percent of consumers admit that they would abandon online payments if pushed to another site.

By bringing together RCS and Mobile Payments, end-users are now able to purchase on-demand subscription services, make charitable donations and enter competitions in a seamless and quick way. With in-built brand verification within RCS channels, consumers also have peace of mind knowing who the message is from.

With this latest capability of RCS messaging, brands are able to achieve a strong return on investment with conversion rates seven times higher when compared to the manual input of credit card details. With RCS messaging already achieving nationwide rollout across the UK and the US, organisations of all sizes will soon be able to adopt this next-generation solution and monetise their services.

To find out more about the solution and to request a demo, please visit: mGage RCS & Mobile Payments.

Evina: The DCB Story and Proximus Case Study

Posted on by Andrea Putnam-Moorcroft

Article written by Evina

THE DCB STORY HAS A BEGINNING AND AN END YOU PROBABLY DON’T KNOW

Mobile operators the world over will recognise the beginning of the story we outline below. Few, however, ever pay attention to how it ends. Let’s begin…

Our story starts in those early, euphoric days of Direct Carrier Billing. Back then, DCB seemed to be the ideal business opportunity for cash-hungry Mobile Network Operators experiencing the effects of declining Average Revenue Per User.

DCB appeared easy to implement, with high margins, and was very much in demand by merchants for its high acquisition rates. Suddenly, mobile operators were payment operators and the sky seemed to be the limit.

Unfortunately, the rash of consumer complaints that followed this honeymoon period very quickly exploded the payments bubble. Anxious to preserve their image and tired of dealing with complaints, the MNOs saw no choice but to severely restrict the use of DCB.

Now this is where many operators believe the story ends and that’s a real tragedy. DCB is far from just another empty pot of gold in a long list of mobile mirages.

Testimony to this is the fact that some forward-thinking MNOs recognised DCB for the promising mobile opportunity that it remained and decided to see where they could go with it.

These innovators blazed a trail and reaped the rewards. Their experiments with refining DCB saw their complaint rates collapse and their revenues increase sharply. We saw this with Proximus in Belgium and Bouygues in France. So, what happened and how did they do it?

Firstly, these operators clearly identified the problem which is the proper starting point in successfully overcoming any challenge. They realised that high complaint rates were not, most of the time, due to dishonest merchants or payment aggregators fleecing an efficient payment system.

Quite the opposite. It turned out that merchants and aggregators were likewise the victims of massive fraud. While fraud is to be expected in any monetary system, the good news is that it is not an insurmountable problem. It can be managed in DCB, just as it is managed in the credit card ecosystem.

Secondly, successful MNOs like the two mentioned above recognise that only fraud experts can beat fraudsters. And we’re not talking about just any, run-of-the-mill experts. Too many generalist companies sell what should be anti-fraud solutions offered by specialists. Even fraudsters sell anti-fraud solutions. Clearly, this is untenable.

In order to be properly secured, MNOs need to be protected by a specialist anti-fraud expert that meets three essential criteria:
·      Independence – The solution cannot belong to an advertiser so there is never any doubt as to why a transaction is validated or refused.
·      Cybersecurity focus – Too many players in the sector are unable to do all the services they provide equally well.
·      Expertise in fraud – The world of mobile payment fraud is a unique environment that requires specific expertise that can only be the result of extended practical experience and serious R&D.

By collaborating with Evina, Proximus and Bouygues soon realised their new specialist anti-fraud provider ticked all the boxes above. The result was that, for them, DCB became the wonderful opportunity it was meant to be from the very beginning.

To explain to all operators how to take full advantage of DCB, and make it a source of substantial profit, we have just published a case study detailing our collaboration with Proximus, including a study of the impact on their revenues and their complaint rate.

It can be freely downloaded here: https://docs.evina.com/case-study-proximus-x-evina

This case study reinforces one of our strongest convictions: by approaching fraud in the right way, DCB can be transformed from the payment method of the past to that of the future.