Bridge Alliance accelerates API market development in Asia Pacific

• Leveraging operator relationships with enterprise customers to offer them API services
• Partnering with multiple channels to meet specific solution needs of enterprise verticals like fintech, e-commerce

SINGAPORE and BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 28, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Bridge Alliance, the alliance of leading global mobile operators has taken big strides forward in accelerating market development of telco APIs in Asia Pacific through channel partnerships. It will showcase updates to its Bridge Alliance API Exchange (BAEx) at the GSMA Open Gateway Zone at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2025.

Launched in 2024 and open to any operator, BAEx has made significant progress in securing channel partners and participating operators. To date, 14 operators have pledged their commitment to BAEx, which simplifies API access and adoption with its unified integration, simplified commercial framework and common operational support model.

Dr Ong Geok Chwee, CEO of Bridge Alliance, said, "We're excited to show the progress that BAEx has made in API market development on the global stage here at MWC 25. We're encouraged by the support of participating channel partners and operators to realise our market-driven approach in serving the needs of developers and enterprises. We look forward to co-creating relevant use cases with them!"

Driving innovation and new use cases 

Bridge Alliance is also driving efforts in innovation and developing new use cases in the region. Bridge Alliance is co-hosting the Open Gateway Global Use Case Innovation Challenge launched by China Unicom Global and the GSMA, which has identified innovative industry proposals tapping on CAMARA APIs that will be shortlisted for potential commercial deployment.

Together, the operator community, academia and industry partners will co-develop these new use cases which will address the needs of Chinese multinational enterprises and can be deployed beyond China. Results of winning proposals will be announced at the MWC Barcelona 2025 and displayed at the China Unicom booth at MWC (Hall 1, Stand 1A60).

As an operator-neutral exchange, BAEx extends its scope beyond Bridge Alliance member operators and serves as an industry catalyst to remove friction for enterprises to adopt telco APIs. Among these, BAEx is now offering Number Verification and SIM Swap. In January 2025, BAEx's Number Verify API received GSMA's Open Gateway Certification.

Channel partners

To further meet the needs of developers in specific enterprise verticals and the long-tail developer community, Bridge Alliance has established partnerships with multiple channel partners including:

CPaaS provider Soprano Design offers an automated digital engagement platform that enables developers to integrate seamless, automated communications into their applications. It will leverage Number Verify API to create secure and trusted digital authentication flows.

Glide Identity provides an advanced authentication solution designed to prevent account takeover fraud and enhance security against AI-driven threats. Glide will be utilizing BAEx's Number Verify and SIM Swap APIs to further strengthen their authentication solutions across Asia.

917Ventures, the corporate venture builder arm of Globe, will publish BAEx APIs on Concati, its one-stop API marketplace for developers that allows integration and consumption of APIs in just a couple of days.

Visit the Bridge Alliance pod at the GSMA Open Gateway Zone at MWC Barcelona 2025 to find out more or www.bridgealliance.com/baex to register your interest in participating in BAEx.

About Bridge Alliance

Bridge Alliance, the leading mobile alliance for premier operators and their customers in Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa, celebrates its 20^th anniversary in 2024. Our alliance today covers 35 members who serve over 1 billion customers collectively across these regions. Our goal is to build group capabilities and create value for our members by enabling compelling roaming services and experience, offering multi-market enterprise and IoT solutions, and delivering savings and benefits through leveraging group economies.

Bridge Alliance's members and partners include: Airtel (India, Sri Lanka and the Airtel subsidiaries in Africa: Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia), AIS, China Telecom, China Unicom, CSL, CTM, Deutsche Telekom, Globe, Maxis, Metfone, MobiFone, Optus, Singtel, SK Telecom, stc (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait), SoftBank Corp., Taiwan Mobile, and Telkomsel.

For more information, visit www.bridgealliance.com.