Google launches RCS business messaging as a more secure alternative to SMS

GOOGLE has worked with Singtel to launch Rich Communication Services (RCS) business messaging for RCS-enabled Android users in Singapore.

Google announced at its Safer With Google event in Singapore on Thursday (Aug 15) that it has worked with Singtel, with support from the Infocomm Media Development Authority, to enable RCS business messaging. Users with other telcos, such as M1, StarHub and Simba, will be able to receive such messages as well.

Singtel Singapore deputy chief executive Anna Yip said that Google will provide the expertise and technology for RCS messages, and Singtel will verify the sender with Singapore’s SMS sender ID registry to ensure that messages come from trusted sources.

Yip said: “We also help businesses with adopting RCS messages, including the implementation and customisation of their immersive mobile messages, to improve the quality of engagement with their customers.”

However, it appears that not all telcos in Singapore have been approached to offer RCS business messaging to corporates.

Simba’s chief executive Richard Tan said the company has not been approached by Google to send RCS business messages.

“We are very open to any collaboration which benefits both consumers and business customers,” he said.

An M1 spokesperson said that M1 is also not in talks with Google to launch its own RCS business messaging service.

Meanwhile, a StarHub spokesperson said that the company does not have plans to adopt or implement RCS business messaging.

“Our clients are already well-served with our comprehensive enterprise messaging suite, which includes SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, and APIs to enhance business communications in an efficient and cost-effective manner,” they said.

Users who receive such messages will see a “verified” mark on RCS business messages, which the company hopes will build cyber resilience and trust in the mobile ecosystem.

Companies will need to work with their messaging partners, or aggregators, whom they send SMSes with, to send such messages to users.

RCS is an instant messaging standard originally developed in 2008 by the industry trade group GSMA Association as a successor to SMS.

SMS, designed in 1993, has been regarded as antiquated for some time, in that its messages are unencrypted and can be intercepted or tampered with. Malicious actors could intercept messages containing critical information, such as one-time passwords, to access a victim’s online accounts.

RCS messages, which are sent over telcos’ data networks similar to the way Over-The-Top (OTT) services such as WhatsApp work, have been touted as being more secure as they are encrypted. Such messages also enable features such as videos, images and other interactive elements.

Google has been rolling out RCS message support for Android users through its Messages app since at least 2019; iPhone users are expected to gain access to such messages later this year, with the release of iOS 18, the next version of Apple’s mobile operating system.

SMS aggregators The Business Times spoke to said that the take-up of the service will come down to pricing and companies’ messaging purposes.

Commzgate chief executive Brandon Teo said that while WhatsApp was typically more expensive to use than SMS, Meta recently reduced the price of sending one-time passwords through WhatsApp. Meta is the parent company of social media apps WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.

WhatsApp charges companies once for 24-hour time periods from when they open a chat session with users; SMS, on the other hand, typically charges on a per-message basis.

Teo said: “This is going to be dynamic, it’s going to be evolving, depending on supply and demand.”

Notably, WhatsApp is also an OTT service that offers much of the same set of features as RCS, such as read receipts and higher-quality media.

Ann Consulting founder Mark You, whose company runs the ReplyX aggregator service, said that he will not offer RCS business messaging on his platform yet because iOS users cannot receive such messages yet.

“If you send (messages) to your consumers, (and) half of them are iOS users and cannot receive that text, there’s no point,” he said.

Google said that aggregators will have access to a tool that can check if a recipient can receive RCS or SMS.

Orange Gum managing director Robin Ng said that the number of SMS messages sent by businesses has fallen in favour of other communication methods, such as push notifications.

In December 2021, scammers posed as OCBC bank using the bank’s sender ID to trick customers into handing over access to their bank accounts.

Since then, banks have been encouraged to phase out sending one-time passwords in favour of using digital tokens and push notifications to verify transactions.

“It depends on how critical the information is,” Ng said, adding that alerts for large banking transactions may still be sent via SMS to get a user’s attention, instead of being sent as push notifications, which may be buried under other app notifications.

Aside from messages, Google announced that it will verify government apps with a unique “government” badge on the Play Store to clearly identify authentic government apps such as CPF Mobile, Scamshield and Singpass.

The company said that it has also blocked nearly 900,000 high-risk app installation attempts on Android phones from Internet side-loading sources with its enhanced fraud protection feature on Google Play Protect, which was launched in February.

The feature, developed with the support of the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore, is meant to safeguard users from malware that can be used by scammers to gain unauthorised access to a user’s phone and their apps, such as banking and e-commerce apps.

In her speech at the Safer With Google event, Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam said that the initiative has been effective at cutting the number of malware-enabled scam cases to 35 cases in the second quarter of this year, down from 60 cases the quarter before.

“We encourage other tech industry players to similarly step forward and partner with the government to develop innovative solutions to combat scams,” she added.