Canada’s major banks and wireless carriers, including Bell, Rogers and Telus, are now sharing fraud information through a new system designed to catch scammers faster.
The Cross-Sector Anti-Fraud Exchange (CSAFE) launched on October 14, allowing banks and telecom companies to share information about confirmed fraud cases.
The system was developed by EnStream, a joint venture between Bell, Rogers and Telus, following a pilot involving CIBC and Rogers. The nine founding participants are Bell, BMO, CIBC, Desjardins, National Bank, RBC, Rogers, Scotiabank and Telus.
Previously, banks and carriers largely handled fraud information separately. With CSAFE, participating companies can share confirmed cases through one platform and use that information to improve their own fraud detection systems.
That could help companies spot suspicious activity when someone opens an account, verifies their identity or makes a transaction. For Canadians, the hope is that scammers will have a harder time moving between banks and mobile providers without getting caught.
The launch comes as phone scams targeting Canadians continue to evolve. Rogers has also introduced stricter identity checks for new mobile activations, while iPhone users can turn to tools that block scam calls and texts.
EnStream plans to expand CSAFE with AI and machine learning as more organizations join. Other banks, technology companies and businesses are also being invited to participate.
Have you ever dealt with a scam involving your bank or mobile provider?
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Ah the leading offenders of offshoring jobs to countries with no background checks are starting to realize the errors of their ways, but at least they are putting some money from all their savings to fight the very fraud they helped create! I was suspicious of fraud from a large telecom company, got a replacement card, then only used the replacement where I thought the offending fraud came from, and BOOM a few weeks later, new card was compromised again, and was only used to pay a bill at one telecom company! I’m working hard to uncover this myself, cause I know the carriers know what’s up, but they can’t admit to what they’ve created, so even if they did discover all of this on their own, they would hide, and work hard to make sure it never came to light. They would work hard to make sure even certain executives don’t hear about said mishap!