SINGAPORE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Vonage (Nasdaq: VG), a global leader in cloud communications helping businesses accelerate their digital transformation, has been selected by leading South Korea-based mobile services provider Kakao Corp to safeguard its platform against fraud and enhance the speed and efficiency of customer notifications.

Kakao Corp is using Vonage’s Number Insight Advanced API to authenticate new users of KakaoTalk, South Korea’s leading instant messaging mobile application, before sending them a verification PIN code via SMS to enable registration. The Vonage API identifies phone numbers around the world, assesses risk, prevents fraud and blocks fake accounts — all without relying on customer input. Using real-time phone number intelligence, Vonage’s API determines if a phone number is valid, reachable, a virtual number or landline, triggers step-up authentication when needed, and prevents costly fraudulent transactions.

Kakao Corp quickly and easily implemented Vonage’s Number Insight Advanced API within its existing platform without changing current processes and uses the solution synchronously to minimise time spent validating numbers.

“The mobile industry is rapidly evolving and service providers face a rising flow of spam and fraudulent traffic that is increasingly difficult to detect and control. It has become critical for service providers to ensure customers of a secure platform, build trust, maintain their reputation and do so without incurring extravagant costs. The Vonage Number Insight Advanced API helps businesses verify their users easily, enabling them to create a safe environment for existing customers while attracting new ones,” said Sunny Rao, Vonage Senior Vice President, API Global Sales.

Mobile application fraud has been growing across the region. According to AppsFlyer’s annual fraud report, ‘The State of Mobile Ad Fraud 2020’, APAC was exposed to US$945 million in app install fraud in the first half of 2020. Markets in the region are responsible for approximately 60 percent of financial exposure worldwide.¹ This has pushed businesses to invest more in security solutions to safeguard their applications.

Established in 2006, Kakao Corp (formerly IWILAB) is a leading mobile services business in South Korea offering services ranging from messaging, news, advertising, gaming, e-commerce and music. Over the past 10 years, the company has grown from a simple messaging app into an online platform giant in the South Korean market. KakaoTalk averaged more than 52 million monthly active users in August 2020 in South Korea. It is available in 15 different languages with more than 150 million users worldwide. Messages sent on KakaoTalk reach 11 billion on average per day, making it South Korea’s favourite messaging app and one of the major communication apps in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.²

With an ever-growing network of more than one million registered developers, the Vonage Communications Platform makes it easy for businesses to use APIs to disrupt their industries, and enable the type of business continuity, remote work, and remote delivery of services that is so essential in today’s environment. Vonage APIs allow developers to easily enhance and build innovative customer experiences directly into their existing applications and devices. The Vonage Communications Platform offers a full suite of programmable voice, video, messaging, and email services to forward-thinking businesses worldwide. Through its partners, Vonage’s platform is at the center of many notable transformational projects in the APAC region, and a de facto for startups.

To find out more about Vonage, visit www.vonage.com.

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About Vonage

Vonage, (Nasdaq: VG) a global cloud communications leader, helps businesses accelerate their digital transformation. Vonage’s Communications Services Platform is fully programmable and allows for the integration of Video, Voice, Chat, Messaging and Verification into existing products, workflows and systems. Vonage’s fully programmable unified communications and contact centre applications are built from the Vonage platform and enable companies to transform how they communicate and operate from the office or anywhere, providing enormous flexibility and ensuring business continuity.

Vonage Holdings Corp. is headquartered in New Jersey, with offices throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. To follow Vonage on Twitter, please visit www.twitter.com/vonage. To become a fan on Facebook, go to facebook.com/vonage. To subscribe on YouTube, visit youtube.com/vonage.

¹tps://securitybrief.asia/story/app-install-fraud-up-945-million-in-apac

²tps://pulsenews.co.kr/view.php?year=2020&no=218180