News

Truecaller For iPhone Sees Complete Overhaul

The Truecaller iPhone app has been completely rebuilt for greater efficiency, with scam and business call identification that’s 10 times better than the previous version.

Published

4 years ago

August 30, 2022

Nour Nasir

Truecaller

iOS users have just been treated to a new version of the popular Truecaller app, which is now in its 12th iteration and promises to be much smaller in size while enjoying a serious boost in speed and efficiency — even on older devices.

Truecaller uses a bespoke spam caller algorithm that works in the background of iOS, updated by the Truecaller community, to spot any malicious or spam calls before they ruin your day. The app now boasts some of the best and most accurate caller ID and scam blocking smarts in existence, and automatically updates its intel without users needing to put in any manual work.

The app has also had a total design refresh, resulting in much quicker navigation and a more intuitive layout, special caller ID Emojis that easily identify the type of incoming call at a glance, as well as powerful search function.

truecaller for iphone new caller id emojis

“We’ve been innovating within Apple’s platform to bring users more powerful features like Call Alerts and a convenient search extension. This update has been a long time coming for many iPhone users, and now we can offer them the best performing identifier of spam and scam to help them separate the noise from the communication they want to respond to,” says Alan Mamedi, Co-founder and CEO of Truecaller.

Also Read: Cameo’s New Feature Allows Live Calls With Celebrities

According to the company’s website, Truecaller 12 will offer significant improvements to SMS filtering and spam detection, as well as the following valuable updates:

10x better Caller ID and protection against spam and scammers.
Simple onboarding for new users.
Enhanced detail view when searching for numbers.
Redesigned search extension and number lookup widget.

As well as the main auto-blocking feature, Truecaller will now offer detailed spam stats and the ability to comment on spam numbers in the log, making for a genuinely valuable and powerful iOS app.

News

Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon

Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.

Published

2 weeks ago

August 27, 2026

Dana Saadeh

visa's return to syria starts with a test and a bank in lebanon

Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.

The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc

— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026

“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.

Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.

Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget

The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.

Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.