Telcos offer silent checks on location, SIM data to counter scammers

When investors log into their Tiger Trade accounts, silent checks are done in the background to verify their SIM card identities.

- Joyce Lee

No passwords or one-time passwords are needed, allowing logins on registered devices to be fuss-free despite the security checks.

This is possible after one Singapore telco got into the thick of the action to counter scammers and hackers.

Tiger Brokers, the firm behind Tiger Trade, uses Singtel's SingVerify service to harness mobile network data for verifying account holders who are also Singtel customers.

Tiger Brokers, which has 2.6 million customers globally, declined to provide the number of customers it has here.

SingVerify matches the location of a login attempt with the location of the customer's registered mobile number. If there is no match, the error is conveyed to Tiger Brokers, which will then block the login attempt and prompt the customer to use an alternative login method.

"Unlike traditional verification methods that rely solely on user input, SingVerify enables seamless identity checks that reduce the risk of human error and social engineering attacks," said a spokesman for Tiger Brokers.