Dolla, the Kiwi payments platform, has today launched a new feature to help Kiwis identify and protect themselves against increasingly convincing SMS scams.

In the midst of a ‘scamdemic’ that is sucking an estimated 200 million NZD out of Kiwi’s wallets each year and worsened by the rise of compelling text scams, Dolla’s new verification technology provides New Zealanders with much needed protection against fraud and deception. 

The automated scam verification tool for iPhone users identifies and filters scam SMS messages and places them in a junk folder – similar to your email inbox. From Dolla’s beta testing, approximately four per cent of all SMS messages received by users from unknown senders were scams, with 98% captured and filtered out by the technology, providing a new, automated front-line of defence Kiwis need against deceitful fraudsters and scams.

Additionally, both iPhone and Android users can upload a screenshot of a suspicious message and receive an instant response as to its likelihood of being a scam or not.

By utilising a growing database of known scams, machine learning and leveraging emerging technologies like AI, the filtering and detection will continue to grow in accuracy and detect more and more sophisticated SMS scams.

“Over the past few years, Kiwis have been forced to rely on their intuition alone to detect SMS scams and the numbers show that fraudsters have become smarter and made their texts look more reputable,” says Ben Lynch, Founder and CEO of Dolla. “As a financial services provider, we know that this is hitting Kiwis in the pocket, and feel we have a duty to utilise the latest technologies in order to help our users protect themselves and their loved ones from these scams.” 

“Being able to seamlessly integrate the scam verification technology into your iPhone, stops the scam in its tracks, before it can even reach you, saving time in your already busy life.” 

Dolla’s scam detection tool is free for all Kiwis and can be utilised without needing to be an active Dolla user. The technology was also built as a standalone product and can be easily integrated into bank and telecommunications mobile applications with discussions already under way with several companies in New Zealand interested in playing their part in protecting their customers.

For more details head to https://www.dolla.nz/

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