Expanding Global Access to Argentina’s Porting Data: A New Weapon Against Fraud and Risk

Authoritative data helps businesses mitigate account takeovers 
and other fraudulent activity, accurately assess risk and maximize operational efficiency

• What’s the News: A new agreement with the Number Portability Committee allows any company doing business in Argentina to access telephone number porting information for mitigating fraud, assessing risk, identifying money laundering and optimizing business processes. 
• Why it Matters: Porting data gives customer service, network operations, risk assessment, fraud prevention and other departments new insights to protect customers, brand reputation and the bottom line. 
• Who’s it for: All companies doing business in Argentina.

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. – October 7, 2024 – Communications service providers (CSPs) in Argentina port around 9,000 telephone numbers every day. A new agreement with the Argentina Number Portability Committee allows any company doing business in the country to access porting information for mitigating fraud, assessing risk, flagging money laundering risks and optimizing business processes. 

Mobile phone numbers are now the primary way that over 3 billion people worldwide are identified when buying and selling online, opening accounts, verifying their age and authenticating themselves to contact centers. Fraudsters are increasingly leveraging that preference by hijacking phone numbers to impersonate people and take over their financial accounts and make purchases in their name.

When banks, retailers, insurance companies, contact centers and other businesses have access to continually updated phone number porting information, they can quickly determine whether a number was recently ported. If it was, they can request more information from that person to verify whether it’s a legitimate customer or a fraudster. These safeguards also can be applied to processes such as risk assessment for new customers. 

“For the first time, any business will have access to accurate, continuously updated Argentinian porting data from an authoritative, trusted source,” said Peter Ford, iconectiv Executive Vice President and “Porting data benefits every part of an organization by providing the insights necessary to proactively thwart fraud, protect customers and brand reputation, maximize operational efficiency and ensure regulatory compliance.” 

Since 2012, this porting information has been exclusively available to CSPs to support business processes such as routing, rating, roaming, invoicing, network maintenance and regulatory reporting. Under the new agreement with the Number Portability Committee, any company doing business in Argentina can access that authoritative porting data. Approved businesses can use this information to:

• Provide their contact centers and other departments with authoritative, continually updated information to help mitigate fraud such as identity theft and account takeovers, assess risk for new customers and thwart money laundering.
• Boost customer satisfaction and brand reputation by proactively blocking account takeovers and other fraud.
• Minimize fraud-related expenses such as fielding and investigating customer concerns about suspicious activity.

In 2011, the iconectiv subsidiary Administradora de la Portabilidad Argentina S.A. (APA) was chosen to administer and verify mobile number porting across Argentina. In 2022, the contract was expanded to include fixed number portability.

For more information visit: https://iconectiv.com/finance