Kenyan startup Transcode has developed fraud management software for banks and telecoms, and is seeking funding to scale it across the continent.
Formed in 2018, Transcode released its core software – iGuard – last year. iGuard is a fraud and money laundering detection engine that leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent and detect complex fraud, in real-time, in banking and telecommunications companies.
“The application has extra analytics and link analysis modules for investigative teams and analysts. It’s currently in use in a telecommunications company and a financial services provider,” Adam Hassan, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Transcode, told Disrupt Africa.
Those clients are high-end, and Hassan said there is a large addressable market for the startup’s solution.
“There are many organisations that would like to implement the solution due to the nature of fraud in African countries. We are currently negotiating with more than five banks to deploy the solution for them. There is a lot of interest from fintechs as well,” he said.
In a busy market, Transcode does not lack competition, which comes from the likes of WeDo, Neural Technologies and Subex.
“The difference between us and them is that we understand the dynamic nature of fraud in Africa, hence our solutions work perfectly. We are also much cheaper than them,” said Hassan.
Currently funded by revenues, Transcode is looking for investment as it plans to scale across Africa.
“The solution is very scalable. The system can be extended with modules and it uses python language extensively, for ease of reproducibility,” said Hassan.
