KB Kookmin Bank has introduced the RCS, marking the first time it has been utilized in the Korean banking industry.
The bank has been sending RCS text messages to customers with smartphones made by Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics that support the RCS since June 11.
Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a communication protocol between mobile telephone carriers and between phone and carrier, aiming at replacing SMS messages with a text-message system that is richer, provides phonebook polling - for service discovery - and can transmit in-call multimedia.
KB Kookmin Bank announces on June 15 that it will implement a text message service to customers through the Rich Communication Service (RCS). (Photos: KB Kookmin Bank)
It is part of the broader IP Multimedia Subsystem. Google added support for end-to-end encryption for one-on-one conversations in their own extension.
In early 2020, it was estimated that RCS was available from 88 operators in 59 countries with approximately 390 million users per month.
In addition to the RCS, KB Kookmin Bank is implementing the Voice Phishing Malicious App Blocking Service and the Fake Text Source Blocking System to prevent voice phishing.
The Voice Phishing Malicious App Blocking Service detects and deletes malicious apps suspected of committing voice phishing immediately by simply running KB Star Banking App. The bank launched the service in April.
The Voice Phishing Malicious App Blocking Service is applied with a technology that collects and analyzes apps distributed from all app stores around the world in real time and finds suspicious ones that deviate from normal file types. It can even detect malicious apps arbitrarily installed on victims’ mobile phones.
Other malicious app detection technology blocks only apps that belong to a blacklist of malicious apps known to cause damage. Therefore, they can hardly detect new malicious apps for voice phishing.
KB Kookmin Bank’s voice phishing malicious app blocking technology is preventing damage by detecting and blocking new malicious apps used for voice phishing.
By June 8, after the implementation of the malicious app blocking service, the service detected malicious apps in about 10,000 smartphones that accessed KB Star Banking.
In March, KB Kookmin Bank established the Imposter Call Blocking System with the government and the nation’s three major mobile carriers.
The system shares official phone numbers of financial companies that send text messages with the government and the three mobile carriers to block text messages if they are not from the financial companies.
In addition, KB Kookmin Bank plans to implement the Caller Identification Service which informs customers of the caller identity “KB Kookmin Bank” in July.
KB Kookmin Bank regularly sends voice phishing warning messages through the KB Star Banking Notification Service to raise customers’ awareness of voice phishing.
In April, the bank told 1.7 million people about unlawful cases of customers allowing their bank accounts to be misused by fraudsters.
In May, about 2.2 million KB Kookmin Bank users received text messages to ask customers to remain vigilant about voice phishing from the bank.
Meanwhile, KB Kookmin Bank announced on July 13 that it will hold the 4th Future Finance AI Challenge to secure ideas for future finance and fuel talented people’s interest in financial artificial intelligence.
Sponsored by the Financial Supervisory Service of Korea, Ewha Womans University, Google Cloud, and AI Yangjae Hub, the contest will be held under the theme of “Problem Solving and Value Creation by Using Artificial Intelligence Technology in the Financial Industry.”
The organizers will give a total of six teams the Financial Supervisory Service Prize, the grand prize, the Best Prize, the Excellence Prize and the Special Prize.
The total prize money is about 27 million won. Five teams with excellent or higher prizes will be exempted from documentary and written screening if they apply for KB Kookmin Bank in the IT and data sectors.
Individuals or teams of up to three members can participate in the contest. But they should be graduate students, undergraduate students and job seekers born in 1993 or later.
The KB Datory website on the internet will receive applications for participation and entries by August 21.
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