Money mules: Shifting from detection to prevention

While the benefits of instant payments are clear, it is essential that payments innovation occurs in parallel with investment in financial crime prevention technology. The advent of P2P instant payments has benefited the consumer significantly, however, it is also being exploited by criminal to defraud customers. Authorised Fraud is on the rise, and is notoriously difficult for banks to detect with traditional tools and tactics because the victim is sending the money themselves as part of a social engineering scam. Any steps financial institutions take to authenticate the customer are ineffective as customers are using their own identity.

This issue is exacerbated by the use of money mules to increase the complexity of detection. This is where criminals use seemingly legitimate bank accounts to launder stolen money.

There is a clear correlation between how closely aligned fraud and AML teams are within a bank, and their success in attempting to reduce attack vectors for Authorised Fraud, identifying money mule accounts, and protecting customers at a higher risk of being targeted.

What is the solution? Banks must start considering the components that need to come together to handle these threats in a more efficient way, such as creating a layered approach to prevention through the use of machine learning and making changes to the culture of the organisation. This is essential for banks that want to shift from merely detecting money mules, to preventing money mules from committing financial crime to begin with.

Sign up to this Finextra webinar, in association with NICE Actimize, to join the panel of industry experts as they discuss the following areas:

• What must be done to ensure instant payments continue to be a viable option amid increasing fraud?
• Who is responsible, or liable, or addressing the money mule challenge?
• Who should banks collaborate with to ensure customers that are at most risk are no longer vulnerable?
• How can you put measures in place to intervene and prevent fraud from happening in the first place?

Speakers include:

• Gary Wright – Head of Research, Finextra