Clickatell SMS receipts offer better security for mobile banking

Bulk SMS provider Clickatell uses text messaging to help prevent fraud and identity theft for mobile banking. Clickatell SMS Receipts use text messages to notify users whenever one of their accounts is used for a transaction. The customer can then either verify or cancel that transaction. This service allows customers to cancel transactions at the point where they occur. As such, it prevents fraud from either on-line identity theft or from actual physical theft of wallets, cards and checkbooks.

Another aspect to this service is that one in two fraud cases is first noticed by the customer being targeted. As a result, this service allows the customer to notify the bank of any suspicious activity as soon as it takes place.

From the release:
“Now customers are the first to know and become part of the solution by being able to notify their bank immediately if they do not recognize a transaction. Banks and card issuers offering this service can stop fraudsters in their tracks; and customers won’t be inconvenienced with service interruptions when traveling, for example, as a result of atypical card usage and other false positives,” commented Pieter de Villiers, CEO of Clickatell. “First National Bank, Moneybookers, S1 Corporation and other leading financial service providers are improving customer satisfaction and loyalty, while lowering fraud and related expenses at a time when they need to earn customer trust more than ever.”

What we think?

Not the first time we’ve heard of a service like this. Barclay Bank, amongst others, has been instituting SMS ant-fraud services. It’s a service that I reckon is almost guaranteed to work. Instant two-way communication between financial institutions and their customers is the best way to prevent fraud. Of course, if a customer also has their phone stolen then there’s nothing that can be done! But, in fairness, you can’t prepare for every eventuality.

Clickatell SMS recepits are already used by several institutions, including Santam, S1 Corporation and First National Bank. This immediately leaped out at me as a service I would really want MY bank to use.