The MTN Mobile Money managing director, Richard Yego has said the company will hold its first-ever webinar themed Conquer the conmen centred around mobile money fraud. The webinar will be held on October 13.
“This is going to be one of those meetings where we shall discuss issues of mobile money fraud, key drivers, and how this can be deterred going forward,” he said.
“We all know that for mobile money to contribute to the country’s social economic transformation, it has to be trusted.”
He said some of the confirmed speakers for the webinar include: the Uganda Bankers Association Executive Director, Wilbrod Humphreys Owor, the managing director of Airtel Mobile Commerce, Japhet Aritho, Kenneth Natukunda, a seasoned Certified Financial Crime Specialist with the Financial Intelligence Authority and civil rights activist and founder of Makerere Community Church, Pastor Martin Ssempa.
The webinar will be moderated by former Vision Group CEO, Robert Kabushenga and aired live on both the MTN Uganda twitter page as well as the company’s YouTube channel and will be accessible to the general public.
This comes in the wake of complaints from a section of subscribers for allegedly losing colossal sums of money through mobile money fraud.
The company appealed to its customers to follow the rules of security when transacting using Mobile Money, not to share their PINs, or the One-Time Passwords (OTP) with anyone, not to use simple PIN combinations that can easily be guessed, such as 00000 or 12345 or 33333; and that MTN calls its customers using the official telephone number 031 212 0000 only.
Although the value of mobile money fraud remains unclear, police believes that the stolen phones could be used to commit some of the mobile money fraud.
Uganda Police Force recorded a 2.4% increase in the case of mobile phone theft to 4,143 cases compared to the previous year, according to the 2021 Uganda Police Force’s Crime Report.