Telco is essential in today’s world – we all know safe and reliable communication channels keep the world’s economies going. However, telco operators and clients face a persistent adversary – fraud. Further, traditional anti-fraud methods are struggling against today’s sneaky fraudsters, leaving networks, revenues, and customers at risk.
Enter Sinapsio, our innovative fraud detection system designed to identify and combat fraudulent activities in real-time, with complete autonomy and ease. Today we introduce you to our founders, Emir Tresnjo and Nikola Jevtic, who have been gathering expertise in the industry for decades but are secretly professional basketball players.
We bring you an interview, where we dive into why Sinapsio was created, what sets us apart, and talk about our founders journeys as they tell us about what they like the most in their jobs.
Why We Need Sinapsio - What inspired the creation of Sinapsio?
Our founders have the same perspective based on the knowledge the team has gathered – Sinapsio exists because telco needs a different – better, more accurate and cost friendly approach – to anti fraud.
Emir: Well, thats a good question. Creation of Sinapsio was a long process, with a lot of learning. Betatel created Sinapsio to combat the huge issue that telco is facing on fraud. Every day we spent in the industry we say that there was a missing piece of safety in the market, so we had this purpose to make communications safer and protect retail users from any danger.
Nikola: We have been in the telco industry for a long time. Each of the partners had a somewhat different experience and background. What was common for all of us was that we were well aware of the existence of telco fraud. We were facing it every day and fighting it on a small scale using various techniques. From firewall rules, database scripts, black–white lists, etc. There has been a discussion from time to time on the topic of fighting fraud detected on traffic that we had running.
At one point we decided to create a project that would combine tools and methods that we have been using so far, and create a universal tool that will do fraud detection in a real-time. Our goal was to protect us, as well as our partners from malicious calls. Also, we wanted to create an image of ourselves to be a company that has zero tolerance for fraud. And it worked 🙂
We Are Different - How does Sinapsio differentiate itself from other fraud detection systems?
Both Emir and Nikola say it simply. Sinapsio’s key selling points target exactly the missing pieces of traditional anti fraud; the aspect of offering a real time protection solution.
Emir: We are innovative with the technology we deploy and how we use it to offer a real time solution- thats what is really our key differentiation. Our aim was to leverage AI to offer real-time, autonomous fraud detection, moving beyond the reactive measures that have become industry standard. As an anti fraud system, Sinapsio has a major focus on REAL TIME fraud prevention. What that means for our customers, is that Sinapsio is not just a prevention system but it is also a preemptive system: meaning it does not allow fraudsters to have any business case to even start with.
Nikola: Firstly, it is a result of our own experience, not a copycat or reverse-engineered piece of software. So by default, it had to be unique. Second, we noticed that the speed at which we were getting results was really high. It was sufficient to try to use it at the same time the call was received before it has been answered. Hence, by definition, it was a real-time protection. After creating a core of the product engine, and testing it, we have decided to go with the creation of a full-blown product, with API, add-ons, storage database, powerful searches, frontend, reports, and much more.
We Can Be Proud - What are you the proudest of since Sinapsio’s launch?
Our founders are not only basketball players – but basketball (and general) team members. And, they love to grow and develop – until the product became perfect.
Emir: Personally, the journey for Sinapsio has brought me closer to my team that combats fraud on the daily basis. I enjoy learning about my teams’ and clients’ experiences and problems, to create new solutions that focus on the key pain points. This is what we work to be at Sinapsio; the customers’ solution.
Nikola: Let’s start with the bad news first. We had downtimes and crashes for the first few months after launching. It made us think about and create a powerful availability design. Also, because we had outages during the night, we had to create an automated recovery system that ran in case of unpredicted errors. Since then, we had installations that run for years, without a need for an intervention. Now, we have systems that have been automatically updated through continuous integration, and that are running literally for years without an error.
What We Love - What is your favourite part about your job at Sinapsio?
We love our clients. We love to work for and with our clients and partners.
Emir: The social aspect. Thats the simple and straight forward answer. My job enables me contacts with people all over the world, which also gives me an opportunity to develop personal connections with these people. Through Sinapsio – and Betatel- I’ve developed some lasting friendships and meaningful connections to our partners and clients alike, from which I have learned and grown significantly.
Nikola: It would be the challenges that we have faced through the development and adaptation of the software. Each customer has slightly different requests and needs, and creating easily adaptable software has been a difficult task that we are constantly facing. And, of course, the satisfaction that we get when seeing fraudsters giving up on attempts is one of the little things that makes our day.
A Tech Question - How does the Sinapsio suite ensure high call quality while preventing Wangiri calls?
Nikola: Our focus has always been on keeping a call quality high. We were struggling to keep PDD (delay time) at a minimum, while still providing real-time protection. We changed the databases and models we were using several times until we reached a satisfactory response time under high traffic flow. To achieve that, we had to develop a testing system that could show us any potential flow in a system design. Also, there was an out-of-the-box approach that I would like to keep a secret at this time.
Bringing Sinapsio to You - What are the key benefits of integrating Sinapsio's solutions into a telecom company's existing infrastructure?
Emir: By integrating Sinapsio in your infrastructure, you will gain access to an almost instant overview over your traffic. Because the system is actively reacting in real time, you will almost instantly have reactions your network. While this is not only vital for protection, it is also amazing and highly rewarding to see the immediate impact with such comfort.
For more information on Sinapsio and our revolutionary approach to fraud prevention, we invite you to visit https://www.sinapsio.com/.
