In our 5 minutes with profiles, MEF members talk about their business, their aspirations for the future and the wider mobile industry. This week, CEO Stefan Kostić introduces mobile authentication experts IPification.
What does IPification do?
IPification is building the backbone for mobile authentication of today and tomorrow: authentication that is secure, and seamless with respect for data privacy, all at the same time.
The patented IPification technology verifies users based on their unique MobileID Key, made of their device, SIM and phone number data. And the result? A happy user!
IPification mobile user authentication, phone verification, and fraud prevention solutions keep users secure without hindering their user experience thus enabling higher user adoption, retention, and engagement.
When did you launch and what growth have you seen?
We launched IPification in 2017 and patented our technology in several countries (US, HK, UK).
In 2020, we’ve seen explosive revenue growth and expanded our services in numerous markets around the world. Right now, IPification is live with 33 telecom operators in 18 markets reaching more than 550M subscribers.
2021 so far seems to be even bigger than last year with more than 45 mobile network operators in the assessment/PoC phase, and we can’t wait to share news of new partnerships, some actually coming very soon…
What are your main goals?
We believe in the passwordless future and work hard with Telecom network providers to make it happen.
Our vision is to establish a secure and user-friendly ecosystem around the IPification technology with the user in the center. We say that there is no reason to compromise between security, user experience and data privacy when you can have it all.
Globally, we plan to enable secure authentication capability for 3 Bn smartphone users and 1 Bn IoT devices in the next 5 years, become a partner of choice for top 100 telecom network providers and serve 10,000 enterprises and developers in 10 different segments by 2025.
Where do you see yourselves and the industry in three years’ time?
We expect SMS OTP as 2FA to be slowly but surely deprecated in many markets which will open the door for many innovative technologies for securing our digital life. We see IPification being at the forefront in network-based authentication, which will be the inevitable technology for possession factor verification.
What aspect of mobile is most exciting to you right now?
The pandemic has changed our lifestyle, preferences, way of working, shopping, communication, how our children study, etc. While we hope life will return to normal soon, it’s apparent that we will be moving to some hybrid forms in many areas such as events or flexible working models.
In many ways, the pandemic has proved to be the catalyst for a complete digital transformation that demands effective mobile identity management, and we’re happy that mobile network operators around the world have realized this and started claiming their unique position in the mobile ID space by enabling state-of-the-art mobile authentication technologies such as IPification.
What’s the most critical issue that will hit mobile within the next 12 months?
The pandemic has caused the number of online activities to skyrocket in all areas of our lives thus elevating the cybercrime opportunity to an unprecedented level. At the same time, frictionless user experience and privacy policies related to digital/mobile IDs are becoming the center of any online service today.
- In the past year, digital adoption has grown 5 to 10x the projected rate
- Working from home became the new norm with many companies such as Google opting for hybrid working models after the pandemic
- A huge increase in BYOD policies
- While users always had a huge preference for a frictionless user experience, Adobe reports that businesses who had invested in customer experience flourished in the second half of 2020
- Tech giants such as Apple are heavily investing in data privacy and being praised for it, while companies such as Facebook continue to be viewed as untrustworthy by many
In the next year, companies will have to strike a balance between these three with their mobile products. Personally, we’re happy that security, user experience and data privacy are transforming from trends into imperatives for businesses since those three are the main pillars on which IPification was developed.
Apart from your own, which mobile companies are the ones to watch in the year ahead?
We would recommend watching mobile carriers because their authoritative position and powerful infrastructure can upgrade the mobile ID space to comply with today’s standards and address the existing challenges. With IPification integrated, they can become the leading authentication player in a new digital ecosystem by offering a highly secure and seamless user authentication service. We aim to empower mobile operators to re-establish themselves in the digital value chain and help them to bring back their power through new revenue streams, strong partnerships with top technology companies and innovative services offered to their subscribers.
You should also pay attention to innovative mobile apps (check out our partners) that are pioneers in providing user-centric services, proving with their successes that user-centric is the deciding factor for user acquisition and retention.
