Fraud has undoubtedly become a significant source of revenue loss and bad debt to the telecommunications industry and with the expected continuing growth in revenues it can be expected that fraud will increase proportionally.

It is predicted that the current losses of $70 billion in 2005 will increase to $93.5 billion by 2010. It is therefore critical for all organisations to implement robust fraud prevention and detection systems to protect their own organisation, the industry as a whole and the innocent consumer.

Clearly, the best way to stop fraud is to catch it before it starts, at the point of registering new customers. As new advances make it harder for fraudsters to commit technology based fraud and organisations address weaknesses in systems and processes, fraudsters will turn to another operator or area of business in order to hit the easiest target. realistically, the only way to stop fraud, rather than just displace it to another target, is to co-operatively tackle fraud across the industry.

A key means of achieving this is through the use of shared subscription and fraud data across telecommunications organisations and the credit industry as a whole. The benefits for telecommunications operator are wide ranging. Financial estimates have been put at €30 million in the UK per year for the industry and analysis of existing national schemes demonstrate that up to 30 per cent of fraud is detected only through cross matching shared data across organisations.

The white paper focuses on subscription fraud and examines methods by which the telecommunication industry can protect itself against the threat of fraud, in particular the powerful benefits of co-operatively sharing data across organisations and industries.

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