Replace OTP. Stop SIM Swap. Meet the Mandates
Authentication
Banks across the GCC, India, and Southeast Asia are under a regulatory order to replace SMS OTP with device-bound, phishing-resistant authentication. This page explains the problem, what the regulation requires, and how Ektar solves it.
SMS OTP is the weakest link in banking security
93% of organisations globally still rely on SMS OTP as their primary authentication method. SIM swap attacks have grown 1,055% year-on-year — eSIM reduces a full SIM swap to under five minutes. OTP interception through phishing is now industrialised at scale. And regulators across five major markets have now banned or restricted SMS OTP for high-risk banking transactions. Every bank still relying on it is non-compliant — or soon will be.
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Major regulators have banned SMS OTP
UAE, India, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Singapore. More are following.
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Fraud victims in UAE (2023)
Driven primarily by SMS OTP exploitation. The numbers behind the CBUAE ban.
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SIM swap attacks (YoY)
eSIM makes a SIM swap trivially fast. Every SMS OTP is now at risk.
Use Cases Addressed
What Banks Need
Most banks aren’t shopping for an authentication vendor — they’re closing a specific list of compliance gaps against a deadline that has already passed. ekShield is scoped around five things banks are actually asking for right now, not a generic feature list.
Replace SMS OTP
With phishing-resistant, device-bound credentials that cannot be intercepted or stolen via SIM swap.
FIDO2 / Passkeys compliance
Omnichannel coverage
Step-up authentication
White-label deployment
Live Deployments
Proven in Production
UAE’s 3rd largest bank deployed ekShield and white-labelled it as their own branded authentication product — independently extending it to corporate banking cards and transactions. A bank putting their name on a vendor’s product is the strongest possible signal of institutional confidence.
3rd largest bank in the Sultanate of Oman contracted ekShield MFA — Ektar’s first major Oman win and a regional reference for GCC expansion.
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Talk to us about authentication
This page explains the problem, what the regulation requires, and how Ektar solves it.