Semafone vision and company history

Semafone was founded in 2009 by a team of experienced call centre professionals with the aim of resolving the PCI compliance challenges faced by the industry. Whilst running one of the UK's leading outsourced call centres, they spent 2 years developing the key innovation of securing the payment card details using DTMF, which allows the caller and agent to remain in contact throughout the call.

Implementation across a number of inbound and outbound projects then followed, establishing not only the technical viability of the solution, but also confirming that caller satisfaction levels improved through use of the system, as callers intuitively grasped the security benefits. Furthermore, there was no adverse impact on the key call centre performance metrics, such as average handling time.

These key contact centre credentials lead to key industry figures lending their support and, in fact, experienced contact centre professional Mike Havard joined the board.

Over the last 12 months Semafone has developed business with large UK merchants and established partnerships with a number of the payment card industry's key players. The scale of the company’s ambitions, both in terms of product development and international expansion, demanded additional funding and in June 2010 Octopus Ventures made a significant investment in the business.

The global nature of the PCI mandate and the well-documented issues around call centre fraud in both on-shore and off-shore contexts provide a firm foundation for Semafone’s expansion. With a strong product development programme Semafone are well set to deliver on their mission statement of securing voice transactions.