The discussion brought together executives from Google, telecom operators, aggregators and fraud experts who emphasised the need for real-time data sharing, stronger collaboration and AI-driven innovation to tackle increasingly sophisticated threats.

• Christoph Uferer, partner – Arthur D Little (chairperson)
• Chanderhas Rana, chief business development officer – BANKAI
• Steve Legge, CEO & president – netnumber
• Pablo Mlikota, SVP of international mobility services – e&
• Craig Lennon, global partnerships lead – voice, SMS & communications infrastructure – Google
• Mariana Osorio de Rodriguez, SMS sales director/wholesale messaging head – C3ntro Global

Google’s global partnerships lead, Craig Lennon said: “Why is authentication important? Well, if you zoom out and consider how the internet works, it relies on users being able to securely sign up, log in, and verify their identities- whether it’s for banking, ride-sharing, e-commerce, or other services. Authentication enables all of that.”

He also stressed how fraud undermines this foundation.

“Fraud has a real impact. It undermines trust in a fundamental part of the internet’s infrastructure. It affects not just Google, but the entire ecosystem,” he added.

“At Google, we were a bit lazy. For a long time, the abuse wasn’t that prevalent, so we didn’t invest enough in actively managing the service. That changed quickly, and we’ve since made serious investments to regain control”.

Meanwhile, BANKAI chief business development officer Chandrahas Rana described how fraud tactics have shifted over decades.

He noted: “About 20 years ago, international fraud mostly involved traditional methods—things like missed call scams, international revenue sharing fraud and so on. Around 10 years ago, with networks becoming more pervasive, traffic-pumping fraud became prevalent, especially in A2P (application-to-person) messaging.”

“With 4G and 5G covering most of the world, including rural areas in countries like India- we’re seeing a rise in identity and subscription fraud. Older types of fraud still exist but have reduced in scale.

“Now, AI is enabling new types of attacks, such as deep fakes. In India, for example, with 1.2 billion mobile users and 50% in rural areas, fraudsters can scrape social media data to impersonate individuals and commit fraud”.

He stated: “Fraud is evolving fast. The ecosystem must keep adapting.”

According to C3ntro Global, SMS sales director and wholesale messaging head, Mariana Osorio de Rodriguez, economic drivers should be attributed to the rising number of fraud cases.

She said: “At the end of the day, it comes down to two things: fraud and money.

“There are many players in the ecosystem, and if we only look at our own part of the value chain, we can’t solve the bigger issue.”

“Operators need to hit revenue targets. Brands are watching their budgets. When SMS prices go up- and they’ve gone up over 40% globally in the past year, even more in some regions like Latin America- it creates a perfect storm.”

“More than 60% of the market in LATAM, for example, is tied to exclusivity agreements. That puts pressure on aggregators and intermediaries, who still need to meet their traffic commitments. The result? Artificial traffic starts creeping in to meet those numbers, relationships break down, and trust erodes.”

She added: “So yes, it’s a vicious cycle. But it’s not hopeless. What we need is collaboration. Everyone, operators, brands, aggregators, has to get involved in restoring trust and cleaning up the ecosystem. SMS is still valuable, but only if we protect it.”

However, netnumber CEO and president, Steve Legge believes this topic is incredibly complex due to competing interests.

“A lot of the rules and regulations still go back to the days of fixed-line telephony. Things like number portability and outdated numbering systems still impact fraud today.”

He stated: “One issue that doesn’t get enough attention is cross-border fraud. Most of the focus is on national or regional regulation, but fraud doesn’t respect borders. Even if you don’t operate internationally, you’re still affected by global fraud patterns.”

He continued: “Policy, regulation, and international cooperation are all part of this conversation. It’s a big challenge, one we’ll likely be tackling for years to come.”

Meanwhile, Pablo Mlikota, SVP of international mobility services at e& acknowledged operator responsibility.

“Honestly, shame on us as an ecosystem. That includes operators and everyone involved. This has been, in many ways, a self-inflicted wound.”

He explained how operator control is shifting, “As MNOs, we carry a significant part of the blame, particularly for enabling models where we gave exclusive control to certain hubs. These hubs were given full power to run the business and set pricing, which quickly attracted attention-and unfortunately, fraud.”

Milkota outlined e& group’s strategy by revealing the company has moved its hub strategy forward and are now directly working with brands to cut intermediaries to get better message control.

“We’ve committed not to monetize messages that look suspicious. For OTP traffic-which should be stable and predictable-if it doesn’t look right, we don’t charge,” he stated.

“Fraudsters are moving faster than we are, and we need AI to keep up. We’ve developed over 900 AI use cases, 30% focused on fraud detection. This helps us act in real time when patterns deviate.”

Commenting on the importance of trust, he continued: “Every undelivered message damages our brand. When something goes wrong, the customer calls the MNO, not Google or the bank. So trust is everything.”

“In voice fraud, we’ve made real progress. And in messaging, we’re seeing major improvements when working directly with brands. Traffic often drops by around 50%, showing the real traffic volume once fraud is removed.”

“The biggest issue is data. If you don’t have the right data in real time, you’re at a disadvantage,” Legge explained.

“Many datasets are outdated, updated weekly or monthly. Fraud moves fast. Number cycling can happen in minutes. So stale data just doesn’t cut it.”

He also warned about fragmentation: “Data is spread across too many silos and is often inaccessible.”

“That’s why it’s so important to have centralised, real-time data. As an industry, we need much more of that. Data sharing, especially internationally, is both a challenge and a huge opportunity.”

According to Osorio de Rodriguez, the industry needs to open up and collaborate.

“Fraud used to be a taboo topic, the ‘elephant in the room.’ We need to share information, increase training and education so teams can spot fraud early,” she urged.

Legge continued: “Technical challenges, policy challenges, and competitive concerns hold back collaboration. Telecom hasn’t shared information effectively like some other industries.”

Meanwhile, Mlikota highlighted the role of associations and innovations.

“Industry associations bring the ecosystem together and help form policy and frameworks. We should also include new players like blockchain providers.”

“Developers have the DNA to innovate against fraudsters, often using blockchain to validate transactions and ensure proper service usage.”

Whereas, emphasised Google’s commitment: “Security is not a competitive advantage, it’s essential for everyone. We’re investing in machine learning models to detect fraud patterns and partnering with operators globally because this is important for the whole ecosystem,” he concluded.