Singapore Will Send Non-registrant SMS As Spam, Hempas On Online Fraud!

JAKARTA - Singapore will soon mark SMS messages that are not registered with local ID registrations as spam. Organizations or companies are required to register before January 31.

This latest move is included in the country's actions to combat online fraud that harms its citizens.

According to industry regulator Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), starting January 31, all businesses not registered with the Singapore SMS Sender ID Registry (SSIR) will be labeled as possible SCAMs.

If the company is already registered with SSIR, they can use the alphanumeric SMS Sender ID when they send an SMS message to the customer.

The IMDA stated that it will better protect consumers from potential fraud and facilitate tracking when fraudulent messages are sent to local phone users.

Furthermore, companies are only allowed to use SMS or aggregator service providers licensed by regulators and participate in SSIR.

Fraud cases that started via SMS accounted for about 8 percent of the fraud report in the second quarter (Q2) last year, compared to 10 percent in 2021, according to data quoted from ZDNet, Monday, January 31.

Since registration was made last March, the number of SMS frauds has fallen 64 percent between Q4 2021 and Q2 2022.

In addition, more than 1,200 companies are currently members of the SSIR, including financial institutions, e-commerce operators, logistics service providers, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The business entity has more than 2,600 SMS Sender IDs among them.

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