Kenz’up is one of North Africa’s leading e-wallets, offering QR code payments, loyalty rewards, and referral programs. Kenz’up’s technology empowers its users with secure and safe payments, and allows them to earn points at a wide variety of stores including Zara, Gucci, and Gap.
North Africa's leading e-wallet and loyalty app
The Kenz’up app allows its customers to earn cashback whenever they pay for their purchases with the Kenz’up QR code at specific locations such as FNAC stores, Afriquia gas stations, and fast food restaurants.
The company has a dedicated fraud and risk team that analyzes transactions and customer behaviours, and a key objective of theirs is to ensure that cashback is only earnt on legitimate sales by legitimate users. Kenz’up also has a referral program that gives special bonuses and rewards to every user invited to the platform.
The Kenz’up team was aware that both their cashback incentives and referral program could be abused by fraudsters in many ways, such as creating fake accounts or using app cloners. Although the company already had existing controls in place, these came at a high cost and required heavy checks and controls. Kenz’up was looking for an added layer of protection.
Leveraging Device Fingerprinting to Expose Thousands of Malicious Accounts
Within hours of integrating SHIELD, the results were clear. Kenz’up was able to detect bad actors with unprecedented speed and ease. Fraudsters who would register thousands of fake accounts by buying huge quantities of SIM cards to create multiple accounts on the same devices are now detected on the spot.
Kenz’up was able to detect and stop the fraudsters by leveraging the SHIELD ID, a unique device identifier that accurately detects every device with extreme persistency. Born of a revolutionary approach to device identification, SHIELD’s proprietary machine learning models used thousands of data points to detect multiple users committing fraud using the same mobile device.
Yassine Zyad commented, “SHIELD saved my team countless hours of work by reducing the need to perform manual identity verifications. It immediately gave us that extra layer of protection to help us stay one step ahead of the game, so we can now focus on growing our business.”
SHIELD also enabled Kenz’up to save huge amounts on OTP costs. Prior to SHIELD, Kenz’up would manually send OTP verification codes to suspected malicious devices. Kenz’up is now able to skip this step as they now have the confidence to allow good devices through and block any that are exhibiting bad or suspicious behavior.
Yassine Zyad added, “Since integrating SHIELD we’ve been able to rest much easier. We’ve made our partner employees aware of potential fraud attempts and have simultaneously saved thousands in OTP costs.”
Detecting Jailbroken and Rooted Phones
Part of Kenz’up’s growth strategy includes adding new features and capabilities to the Kenz’up wallet, with security as a top priority. Although the company uses the latest end-to-end encryption techniques, if bad users access the app on rooted or jailbroken devices they will no longer be able to guarantee a safer environment for their good users.
To resolve this concern, Kenz’up leveraged the SHIELD Risk Indicators, a set of indicators that identify any tools and techniques in use that are typically associated with fraudulent activity. By processing device attributes and running processes, the SHIELD Risk Indicators detected all rooted and jailbroken devices, which enabled Kenz’up to take immediate action and investigate the users in question.
Yassine Zyad added, “The SHIELD Risk Indicators are game changers. We now know exactly which tools the fraudsters are using, and when they’re being used.”
One Solution Fits All
Part of Kenz’up’s fraud prevention strategy was to find a solution that could address a wide variety of concerns. Within days of integration, Kenz’up had leveraged both the SHIELD ID and the SHIELD Risk Indicators to detect and block all fraud and abuse on their platform, which empowered them to focus on their continued growth.
