GASA and Google Trust & Safety Workshop Sets Priorities for Anti-Scam Cooperation Across Africa
Blog ·
Fraud and scams increasingly operate across financial institutions, technology platforms, telecommunications networks and national borders. Addressing them effectively requires stronger coordination between the organisations responsible for prevention, detection, investigation and consumer protection.
The workshop focused on moving from discussion towards practical cooperation. Participants examined emerging fraud and scam trends before working across four areas: balancing fraud prevention with customer experience, cross-border scam response, money mule detection and prevention and the psychological and cultural factors influencing scam behaviours.
Patricia Eromosele, Director of GASA Africa Chapter , opened the workshop by welcoming participants and emphasising the need for greater cross-sector collaboration. Sipho Mtombeni, Government Affairs and Public Policy Manager at Google South Africa , welcomed participants on behalf of the host and highlighted the importance of collaboration across sectors.
The GASA Africa Chapter team also included Fabienne Yomsi, Partnership Manager , and Rens Grim, Advocate , who closed the workshop by thanking participants and reaffirming the Chapter's commitment to supporting collaboration and efforts to reduce consumer fraud across Africa.
The discussions that followed brought perspectives from banking, financial inclusion, fraud prevention and technology before participants moved into facilitated working groups to develop recommendations and potential areas for action.
Roshan Jelal, Head of Fraud Risk at FNB South Africa, provided a banking-sector perspective on emerging fraud and scam trends, examining current challenges and the measures Southern African banks are taking to deter fraud.
Obert Mposa, Senior Financial Inclusion Specialist at FinMark Trust , explored the relationship between financial inclusion and scams. FinMark Trust's figures showed that 99% of South Africans are formally financially served and 89% are banked . Against this high level of financial access, 3.4 million South Africans were reported to have experienced banking fraud or illegal transactions .
The presentation identified priorities for different parts of the financial ecosystem, including stronger consumer protection frameworks, the use of digital innovation to build trust and better evidence to support decision-making.
Nazia Karrim, Head of Fraud Risk & Prevention at MoData , examined the behavioural dynamics behind scams. Her presentation described trust, technology and vulnerability as creating the conditions for successful scams and emphasised that awareness alone is insufficient. Continuous mitigation needs to be combined with coordinated collaboration across sectors and borders.
Melvin Yogolingam, Chief Executive, FinCrime & AI Strategy at Merylnn AI , addressed challenges surrounding South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), including the implications for cross-sector collaboration and information sharing.
Together, these perspectives set the context for the workshop's central question: how can organisations move beyond addressing different parts of the scam lifecycle independently and build a more coordinated response?
Participants were divided into four working groups to examine areas where greater coordination could strengthen prevention and response.
Each group was tasked with developing practical recommendations before presenting its conclusions during the afternoon action-planning session.
Nazia Karrim of MoData led the presentation of the first group's outcomes on balancing fraud prevention and customer experience. Rabia Turnbull of React and Munyaradzii Naison Silomonye of INTERPOL presented the cross-border scam response group's work, while Rahendran Pillay of Standard Bank Group led the presentation on money mule detection and prevention. Sharon Knowles of Davinci Forensics presented the fourth group's recommendations on cyber psychology, culture and scam behaviours.
Looking to contribute to collaborative anti-scam initiatives? GASA Working Groups bring members together to develop practical, real-world solutions.
The working group led by Nazia Karrim of MoData examined how organisations can strengthen fraud prevention without creating unnecessary friction for customers. Its guiding principle was to apply friction where the risk is , rather than requiring every customer to repeatedly prove they are trustworthy.
The group proposed giving customers greater access to trusted prevention tools through channels they already use. These could include destination-account verification, suspicious-domain checks, deepfake detection and an AI-supported fraud assistant that helps customers assess questionable emails, messages, calls or payments.
Participants also recommended more intelligent intervention when elevated risk is detected. Proposed measures included risk-triggered authentication, conversational warnings before suspicious payments are released, holistic trust scoring and the combination of behavioural and transactional intelligence to identify abnormal activity more accurately.
Where an incident has already occurred, the group proposed a more coordinated protection model. Recommendations included fair liability principles, a reusable repository of verified trust signals and a single reporting channel capable of distributing an incident to banks, telecommunications providers, technology platforms, law enforcement and other relevant stakeholders.
The group’s proposed model can be summarised as: low risk should result in largely invisible security, elevated risk should trigger intelligent intervention and confirmed incidents should lead to coordinated protection .
One of the most detailed sets of proposals emerged from the working group examining whether African countries can respond more collectively to cross-border scams.
The group identified fragmented legal frameworks, slow cross-border response times, barriers to intelligence and data sharing, limited interoperability, uneven capacity and limited coordination as major obstacles.
African countries can face similar scam typologies and interconnected criminal networks, while differences in legislation, definitions, investigative procedures and data protection requirements make collective action more difficult. By the time information moves between authorities, financial institutions, platforms or law enforcement agencies, fraudulent accounts, communications infrastructure or funds may already have moved.
The group proposed exploring an African Anti-Scam Harmonisation and Response Framework , drawing conceptually on existing African approaches to regulatory harmonisation.
Rather than replacing national enforcement bodies, the proposed model would establish common standards and procedures while allowing national and regional institutions to retain their existing mandates.
The suggested structure would operate at three levels:
The objective would be to make existing national systems work together more effectively rather than create a single centralised enforcement system.
The cross-border group also examined how technology could support cooperation without requiring sensitive information from different jurisdictions to be stored centrally.
One proposed principle was to "digitise expertise, rather than centralise sensitive data" . Under this approach, national and regional organisations could retain control over sensitive information while analytical capabilities, including AI-supported models, help identify patterns, connections and repeat offenders across different data environments.
Participants also proposed greater technological interoperability, including mechanisms for sharing fraudulent identifiers, financial alerts, indicators of compromise and digital evidence. The emphasis was on enabling systems to communicate and exchange actionable intelligence rather than creating a single continental database.
Standardised response times were another recommendation. Critical cases could require immediate escalation, while high-severity cases could carry a 24-hour response expectation. Establishing agreed procedures in advance could reduce delays when a cross-border scam is identified.
The group recognised that a continent-wide framework would be a long-term undertaking, estimating a minimum implementation period of five years. A phased approach could begin with legal and institutional foundations before moving towards regional pilots, technological integration and wider expansion.
The working group led by Rahendran Pillay of Standard Bank Group examined how financial institutions, regulators, law enforcement and other stakeholders can strengthen the detection and disruption of money mule activity across Africa.
A central priority was establishing a common understanding of mule activity across jurisdictions . Participants highlighted the need for consistent definitions, terminology and objectives so organisations can identify the same behaviours, align investigations and measure progress against shared outcomes.
The group also identified data exchange as a critical enabler . Mule networks often span institutions, payment channels and national borders, leaving relevant information fragmented across different organisations. More effective information sharing could help connect these data points, identify networks, trace fund flows and support earlier intervention.
Participants recommended developing trusted mechanisms for data exchange while addressing the operational, legal and regulatory barriers that currently limit information sharing. International approaches in countries such as Singapore and Australia were identified as potential reference points for overcoming privacy and information-sharing challenges.
The discussion also emphasised the importance of bringing together the different actors involved across the mule account value chain, including financial institutions, regulators, mobile network operators, law enforcement and participants in formal and informal financial ecosystems .
Several areas requiring further alignment were identified, including distinguishing between willing and unwilling mules, understanding the motivations behind mule behaviour, categorising different mule types and strengthening cross-border tracing, freezing and recovery of illicit funds.
The working group led by Sharon Knowles of Davinci Forensics examined how psychological, social and cultural factors contribute to the success of cyber-enabled scams and how interventions can better reflect those conditions.
Education was identified as an important preventative measure, but participants argued against relying on generic awareness campaigns. Programmes should instead be tailored according to language, culture, community demographics, geographic location and digital literacy .
Schools, universities, government departments, financial institutions, internet service providers, technology companies, religious organisations and community groups were among the audiences and channels identified.
The group also recommended placing greater emphasis on reaching people before financial loss occurs through consumer education, behavioural awareness campaigns, early warning alerts and accessible sources of advice.
Reporting emerged as another area where greater coordination could support earlier intervention and disruption.
Participants recommended simpler and more standardised reporting processes so people understand where and how to report scams, reports reach the appropriate organisations quickly and information can be shared between relevant stakeholders.
The proposed reporting framework would connect consumers, law enforcement, financial institutions, technology platforms, telecommunications providers and regulatory authorities, supported by clearer reporting channels and secure information sharing.
One specific proposal was a zero-rated reporting platform that could be accessed without mobile data charges. The platform could provide simple mobile reporting, multilingual support and guidance for people seeking help, including before financial loss occurs.
The group also identified sustainable funding as necessary to support awareness campaigns, community education, reporting infrastructure, research, capacity building and cross-border collaboration.
The Trust & Safety Workshop demonstrated the value of bringing different parts of the anti-fraud ecosystem to the same table. The discussions showed that many barriers to scam prevention extend beyond any individual organisation, sector or country, from differences in legal definitions and reporting processes to data-sharing requirements and technical systems.
The outcomes identified several areas for continued work, including customer-facing prevention tools, risk-based intervention, stronger cross-border coordination, trusted intelligence-sharing mechanisms, improved money-mule detection, clearer reporting and escalation processes and prevention approaches adapted to local communities.
GASA Africa Chapter brings together organisations across sectors to strengthen collaboration against scams and support coordinated action across the continent.
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