Fraud in Mobile Financial Services: Protecting Consumers, Providers, and the System

This Brief highlights how fraud is impacting mobile money providers, agents, and consumers, as well as efforts to reduce risks and vulnerabilities to fraud in mobile money and related services. While it is not possible to remove fraud entirely from any service—mobile money included—the examples addressed here show that fraud is a major issue in several key markets for consumers and agents, and that there are simple steps providers can take to reduce their vulnerability to common fraud types. 

These steps include improving internal controls, building agent capacity to protect themselves and their customers, and revisiting procedures such as account access and SIM swaps, where necessary, to prevent common fraud schemes. With the introduction of new products and delivery channels, the types of fraud will continue to evolve, which means that monitoring mechanisms, such as compliance checks and customer feedback channels, will continue to be key elements to effective fraud and risk mitigation.