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Rotherham business scoops national IT award for ground-breaking fraud prevention technology

A marquee and gazebo manufacturer has won a national award for an innovative secure order transfer system it has developed to protect against telephone fraud.

South Yorkshire based Gala Tent scooped the award for Security Innovation of the Year at the 2014 UK IT Industry Awards run by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, and Computing, beating a host of high profile IT companies including BT, Firehost and Random Storm.

The annual awards provide a platform for the entire IT profession to celebrate best practice, innovation and excellence. In total 24 awards were presented at a glittering ceremony on November 12 at London Battersea Park Events Arena covering project, organisation, technology and personal excellence.

Gala Tent’s innovative Secure Order Transfer (SOT) system was developed to help prevent the 48.4m fraudulent e-commerce transactions which take place in the UK each year.

The system, which is the brainchild of company founder and managing director Jason Mace, has prevented 100% of fraudulent phone transfers since it was implemented in 2012.

Mace developed the system after one of his businesses was a victim of telephone fraud through a third party ordering system. Unable to find an off the shelf solution he set about creating his own system.

The innovative SOT system allows orders to be taken over the phone confidently and safely, meaning that consumers are at a lower risk of their cards being used fraudulently. It works by connecting the telephone order with an online secure transaction system where the customer manually inputs their details instead of giving them over the phone. The result is more rigorous checks on the card and customer details.

The SOT System has been implemented across the Gala Tent business and Mace is now planning to roll it out to minimise the risk of fraud on a national and even global scale. With banks set to increase charges for telephone transactions in January 2015, SOT will add further value by helping to reduce charges by up to 50% thanks to its 3D Secure technology, which allows the telephone transaction to be carried out online.

VISA and MasterCard are among the businesses who have already expressed a desire to implement the system while interest to acquire the business, which has been valued at £50m influenced by HSBC, has also been registered.

Speaking about the award win Mace said: “I am overwhelmed with the award; the UK IT Industry Awards are rigorously judged and truly celebrate innovation and best practice in IT today. To emerge as a winner in such a highly competitive industry is excellent.

“Telephone transactions are still 70% of business in Britain but the IT industry has ignored development in tackling telephone order fraud to date. The Secure Order Transfer system was set up in-house to combat this issue and now we have the attention of some of the largest players in the security sector. It’s an amazing achievement and a huge step forward for fraud prevention from telephone orders”.

Mace adds that because Gala Tent is not a specialist IT Company, he would consider selling the Patent Secure Order Transfer technology to further its development.

Commenting on behalf of the UK IT Industry Awards, Paul Fletcher, Group CEO of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, added: “Congratulations to all the winners and those who were highly commended in our UK IT Industry 2014 Awards. The Awards recognise the professionalism and innovation that exists in IT. The quality of applications we received this year was excellent, but the winners stood out as exceptional and inspiring, and should be very proud of their success.”

The UK IT award win follows two further recent recognitions for Mace and his business. He was voted South Yorkshire Business Person of the Year 2014 in the South Yorkshire Business Awards last month while Gala Tent has been shortlisted in two categories of the Sheffield Business Awards 2014; Excellence in Manufacturing and Excellence in Customer Service.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Michaela Stafford .