At the instance of the major banks, The Banking Council, retailers and credit-granting organisations in South Africa, the South African Fraud Prevention Service has been established in Johannesburg with 12 founding members, namely Standard Bank, Nedcor, Absa, FNB, BOE, African Bank, Relyant Retail, Lewis, BMW Financial Services, Edcon, Truworths and Telkom.
The service is a non-profit organisation based on the successful CIFAS model in the United Kingdom which has achieved savings from fraud prevention in excess of 650 million Sterling over the past 10 years.
When information provided by an applicant for a product or service fails application checks, member organisations are able to exchange details that they suspect are fraudulent. Members can also exchange information about accounts that are believed of being fraudulently used. Members may not refuse an application for goods or services purely on information contained in the SAFPS database, but must always consider the other application criteria before deciding on which course of action to take.
The general public will also be able to protect themselves from impersonation by registering the loss or theft of identity documents with SAFPS. This will be a free public service accessed through the SAFPS website, by going to an SAFPS member outlet that has Internet availability, or by contacting SAFPS directly on their 086 number.
To ensure that the service maintains a high level of professional ethics and transparency, all members are required to agree to a Code of Ethical Conduct, be audited on an annual basis and to abide by the Vision, Mission and Values of the Service.
According to Pat Cunningham CEO of SAFPS, one of the most important aspects of the service is the ability of members to share data on fraudulent activity. "The sharing of data means that members are able to reduce their risk when granting applications for goods or services. The more organisations that subscribe to the service, the more data will be available to members and the less will be the exposure to loss through fraudulent conduct. Organisations who believe that they can operate in a vacuum when it comes to fraud prevention cannot succeed. We need to remember that fraud prevention must be a non-competitive issue between organisations who normally are highly competitive in the market place."
The data will be stored at the credit bureaux, ITC and Experian and will be immediately available to members when they undertake an enquiry during the normal course of their daily business.
The service will also provide its members with a daily fraud alert through data analysis utilising state of the art analysis software.
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