OPay unveils seven security features to shield customers from cyber fraud

Digital bank OPay has unveiled seven in-app security features in the latest drive to firm up its operational safety mechanism to deliver improved protection of customers’ funds.

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The fintech unicorn, now valued at $2.8 billion, is rolling out the products to provide extra layers of security to customers when one-level protection can hardly guarantee bank account safety in the face of increased exposure to cyberattacks and phone theft.

“For our customers, for every account they have, the top priority they have is security,” Elizabeth Wang, OPay Nigeria’s chief commercial officer, said at the launch in Lagos on Friday.

“That’s why from the OPay side, we invest a lot and we will continue to do so on the security products, so that we will continue to protect our customers from any situations that they might face, any threats to the security of their funds,” she added.

The products were developed using a customer-centric approach that gave account owners ample freedom to voice their complaints and the concerns around the threats they face in operating their accounts to a dedicated team.

The idea was to draw as many responses and feedback as possible from the broad customer base to guide the development of inclusive solutions that will meet their digital security needs.

Ms Wang said a great deal of investment went into delivering the products, just as the company deployed available technologies and infrastructures to ensure that they provide an optimal user experience.

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The products

Location Guard, one of the new security features, allows any OPay app user to select their preferred primary location. Once their device is outside that spot, the app requires their Face ID for additional verification before access can be granted to their account, helping guard against vulnerabilities during incidents like phone theft.

**OPay unveils seven security features to shield customers from cyber fraud**

The company noted that a substantial sum has been committed to the face recognition technology, which was first introduced three months ago. It said that much progress has been recorded in upgrading it to a level where it now has a high accuracy rate enabling it to detect the right account owner in cases where another person with a striking facial resemblance tries to access the app.

Night Guard, another innovation, only permits the face ID of the account holder for approval during late-night transactions. The product Large Transaction Shield requires the same face recognition process for transactions involving huge sums of money.

Scam Alert is designed to spot and stop potentially fraudulent transfers, while USSD Lock helps users to block their account or card using a USSD code. In a way, it is similar to Emergency Lock, which locks and safeguards the fund in the account with a click on one of the buttons in the app.

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“We prioritise your needs, and we sort of did an investigation to say, okay, what sort of scenarios do you find yourself every day that makes you at risk right to fraudsters or just fraud cases? And that is the reason why all of these products are here”, Oluwaseun Imade, OPay’s enterprise marketing manager, said.

Such innovations could provide some relief from a wave of digital banking fraud in Nigeria, where, according to the latest edition of the Annual Fraud Landscape, a publication of the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System, the mobile channel has emerged as the most profitable channel for fraudsters, followed by internet banking and point of sales terminals.

The report revealed that the amount lost to fraud reached N17.7 billion in 2023, up by 23 per cent from the preceding year.