Standard Bank Trust Call Qorus-Infosys Finacle Banking Innovation Awards 2025 - Winner

Trust Call: Elevating Confidence in Digital Banking

The Trust Call solution at Standard Bank is an innovative, in-house security feature designed to empower our clients with greater confidence that they are speaking to a bank representative, directly tackling the rising threat of voice phishing (vishing) fraud. By instilling heightened awareness and encouraging caution, Trust Call aims to provide relief to our clients, ensuring their peace of mind.

Concept and Objectives Our core concept is to provide real-time call verification for inbound calls claiming to be from Standard Bank. The main objectives are: • To verify that the customer is on the call with Standard Bank, while using the Banking app, giving clients clear visibility and confirmation that they are engaging with a legitimate bank agent. This immediate verification fosters relief and increases confidence and trust. • To deliver immediate scam awareness and prevention guidance to clients when an unverified call is detected. Clients will get alerted of potential spam calls when using our banking app, encouraging correct behaviours, and helping them avoid fraudulent schemes. This aims to drive caution and reduce panic during potentially fraudulent interactions. • To feed crucial signals to our fraud detection systems, enhancing risk assessments for payments and strengthening overall fraud prevention.

Reasons Behind This solution was born out of an urgent need to address a significant surge in digital fraud, specifically vishing. While Standard Bank has seen tremendous growth in digital banking adoption, this success has unfortunately been accompanied by a concerning year-on-year increase in digital fraud. Fraudsters have shifted from traditional credential theft to sophisticated social engineering tactics, primarily voice phishing, to manipulate clients into authorising fraudulent payments themselves. Currently, approximately 80% of fraud incidents on our Digital Banking platforms are linked to these vishing attacks. Fraudsters exploit their knowledge of our products and services to gain trust and emotional leverage, leading to significant financial losses for our clients. This alarming trend highlighted the critical need for enhanced client education, proactive fraud detection, and smarter communication strategies.

Departments Involved This solution was a collaborative effort, leveraging cross-functional expertise across several key departments, including our Digital Security, Fraud, Digital Platforms, Voice Platforms, Fraud Risk Systems, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platform teams. An agile delivery approach was adopted for this cross-functional team, necessitating the build of new services for seamless integration between these diverse platforms.