Nigerian digital security and compliance company Prembly has launched FraudLens, an open-source fraud intelligence bank designed to help financial institutions, fintechs, and businesses detect and prevent fraudulent activity across Africa.
“We haven’t seen any resource this accessible and comprehensive, and rather than waiting for someone else to build it, we decided to,” said Lanre Ogungbe, CEO of Prembly.
FraudLens serves as a centralized database where organizations can share and access verified intelligence on bad actors, aiming to strengthen the continent’s fraud prevention infrastructure and mitigate the escalating costs of digital scams.
Why Africa’s Growing Fraud Crisis Requires a Shared Intelligence Platform
As digital financial services rapidly expand across sub-Saharan Africa, financial inclusion has improved significantly. Today, nearly 60% of adults hold financial accounts, a stark increase from less than 40% a decade ago. However, this digital revolution has inadvertently opened new avenues for cybercriminals.
In 2025, Africa lost an estimated $5 billion to cyber crime, with recent data from cybersecurity monitors suggesting that total scam-related losses could be even higher when accounting for unreported social engineering attacks. For instance, between April and June 2025, Kenya recorded more than 4.5 billion cyber threat events, and lost ost approximately KES 29.9 billion (US$230 million) to cybercrime.
The sophistication of these crimes is escalating rapidly. Fraudsters are increasingly deploying AI-enabled techniques, including synthetic identity scams and deepfake-driven impersonations, to bypass traditional security measures. For financial institutions and compliance professionals, these evolving threats represent a severe crisis.
Criminals exploit silos between competing banks and fintechs that rarely share data about emerging vulnerabilities, allowing bad actors to strike multiple platforms using the same methods.
This initiative is part of a growing wave of efforts by African startups like Smile ID and Dojah, which are actively building identity verification solutions to strengthen trust in the financial ecosystem. Recently, TechMedia Africa reported that Cybervergent, a Lagos-based cybersecurity startup, raised $3 million in seed funding to expand its AI-driven compliance, risk, and data security platform across Africa and the Middle East.
The urgency for collaborative defense mechanisms was recently highlighted in late December 2025 and early 2026 when INTERPOL’s Operation Red Card 2.0 targeted digital fraud networks across 16 African countries, exposing scams linked to to over $45 million in financial losses.
FraudLens: A Shared Fraud Intelligence Platform for African Businesses
FraudLens addresses these vulnerabilities by functioning as a collaborative intelligence hub. The platform aggregates fraud events reported by hundreds of businesses and partner financial institutions that currently utilize Prembly’s technology.
Each reported incident is subjected to rigorous behavioral and forensic analysis to identify underlying patterns.
By centralizing this data, the technology allows financial institutions to access verified intelligence on known bad actors, documented fraud cases, and supporting evidence.
When a new user attempts to open an account, institutions can check the open-source repository to see if the associated phone number, device, or identity has been previously flagged.
This shared infrastructure ensures that a fraudster who exploits one platform cannot seamlessly move to another unnoticed.
Ogungbe noted the necessity of collaborative networks:
“Fraudsters often recycle the same tactics across different platforms. By pooling intelligence, we can stop them from exploiting these gaps,” he said.
How Shared Fraud Intelligence Could Reduce Billions in Scam Losses
The successful deployment of shared fraud intelligence platforms like FraudLens holds transformative potential for Africa’s digital economy. By identifying risks earlier, businesses can protect their customers and significantly reduce the billions of dollars drained from the continent annually.
Keeping these funds within the legitimate economy can save startups from devastating compliance fines and preserve thousands of jobs in the tech and financial sectors.
Furthermore, this technology serves multiple stakeholders beyond just banks. Researchers and policymakers gain crucial data to inform robust compliance regulations, while everyday consumers can use the platform as an educational library to recognize warning signs and common scam patterns.
Ultimately, mitigating digital fraud builds stronger consumer trust, ensuring that Africa’s financial inclusion drive continues to improve lives without exposing vulnerable populations to financial ruin.