BSG Clearing Solutions, a subsidiary of Billing Services Group Ltd, has launched its Near Real Time Roaming Data Exchange (NRTRDE) service. BSG's NRTRDE solution exceeds industry standards by offering processing speeds that greatly minimize GSM mobile operators' exposure to roaming-related fraud, the company said. Additionally, BSG announced that avea (Turkey), Cellcom (Israel) and Geocell (Georgia) have all selected BSG's new NRTRDE solution.

    The GSM Association (GSMA) recommends that all GSM mobile operators switch to the NRTRDE system by Oct. 1, 2008, in order to combat roaming fraud, the company said. NRTRDE provides GSM operators with continuous data on roaming calls and enables them to improve their management of international roaming fraud by closing the "time window" in which losses can occur.

    BSG reported that current NRTRDE industry reporting standards can expose operators to roaming fraud for up to 36 hours; but in contrast, BSG's NRTRDE reporting capability can reduce this window to less than four hours. BSG's NRTRDE service also will transfer and validate 90 percent of call data within 10 minutes of its receipt from a client and all data within 40 minutes.

    "With operators aiming to meet new GSMA standards, we developed our NRTRDE solution to go above and beyond data transfer speeds required by the market," said Atul Devani, CEO of BSG's wireless division. "The quicker an operator can transfer call data for roamers on their network to the relevant partner operator, the shorter the fraud exposure for both operators. We have a number of clients that have already contracted for this service and are continuing to develop new tools that allow them to make full use of the incoming NRTRDE data stream for wider fraud detection and billing applications."