VodafoneThree has launched an anti-fraud proof-of-concept project in partnership with multiple banks and industry bodies. Leveraging custom rules on its SMS firewall, the operator achieves large-scale interception of fake bank phishing SMS. This initiative represents a typical cross-sector anti-fraud collaboration between telecoms and finance, with MEF providing secretariat and operational support.
The proof-of-concept was initially developed with Barclays Bank and later expanded to The Co‑operative Bank and TSB Bank, alongside collaboration with the Cyber Defence Alliance (CDA). Built upon the operator’s existing SMS firewall, the project develops dedicated detection rules for participating banks. The system can accurately distinguish fraudulent messages from legitimate bank service alerts while ensuring genuine notifications are delivered normally. Since the pilot launch in August 2025, over 2 million bank-targeted fraudulent SMS have been blocked, boosting the network’s interception volume of bank-related scam messages by approximately 25%. In 2025 alone, VodafoneThree blocked more than 139 million fraudulent SMS across its network.
Rachel Andrews, Director of Fraud Prevention at the operator, noted fraud accounts for 44% of all crimes committed in the UK. Anti-fraud work cannot be handled by a single organisation and requires government, law enforcement, financial and telecom industries to jointly refine protective measures. The operator urges the public to forward suspicious SMS and calls free of charge to 7726 for reporting. Collected threat intelligence is shared with other operators and anti-fraud bodies to continuously improve scam detection capabilities nationwide.
