Twilio, telcos to launch silent network authentication in PHL

By Beatriz Marie D. Cruz, Reporter

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — American customer engagement platform Twilio, Inc. is working with local telecommunications companies (telcos) to launch its silent network authentication (SNA) channel in the Philippines by 2026, as more banks shift away from one-time passwords (OTPs) to stronger authentication methods.

“Next year, SNA will become available through the Twilio platform for customers in Australia and the Philippines,” Twilio Solutions Architect Alon Cohen told BusinessWorld on the sidelines of SIGNAL 2025, a conference hosted by Twilio, last week.

“That’s what we’re aiming for, and we’re working diligently with the telcos, with our partners, to make it happen,” he said. “We expect definitely in the next three quarters to have some carriers offering the service through the Twilio platform.”

Mr. Cohen said Twilio is in talks with Philippine mobile carriers to integrate SNA into their network infrastructure, a step necessary before the service can be commercialized locally.

Twilio’s partnership with telcos is key, as SNA uses carrier technology to verify a subscriber’s phone number silently — without requiring users to enter a code or use a separate authentication app.

Through its Verify API platform, Twilio offers various authentication methods, including SNA, passkeys, voice, e-mail, SMS, and time-based OTPs.

The company said SNA can authenticate a user’s identity within two to four seconds using data from mobile network operators.

SNA provides a higher level of protection compared with text-based OTPs, which are unencrypted and vulnerable to attacks such as phishing, SIM swapping, and account takeovers, according to Mr. Cohen.

“We believe SNA is one of the more secure ones. We have implemented other methods, apart from the encryption, to ensure that it is a safe and secure mechanism,” he said.

Twilio said the technology is built in accordance with Global System for Mobile Communications standards and can verify both physical and electronic SIMs.

In the Philippines, many financial institutions still rely on OTPs and basic password verification despite rising cyber risks.

Data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) showed that banks and other supervised institutions lost P5.82 billion in 2024 to cybercrimes such as phishing, hacking, and identity fraud.

The BSP has been urging financial institutions to adopt more robust authentication methods to prevent fraudulent transactions and account takeovers.

“We see great potential with this product, especially in regions where fraud in different forms is more prevalent,” Mr. Cohen said.

Twilio’s Verify SNA is currently available in the United States, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Indonesia, Singapore, and France.