The COVID-19 crisis has led to a rise in digital transactions and acceleration to digital channels but, at the same time, has led to an increase in financial crime and other fraudulent activities. Criminals are currently targeting people looking to buy medical supplies online – sending emails offering fake medical support and scamming people who may be vulnerable or increasingly isolated at home. But with many people now working remotely, companies face a higher risk of being defrauded by people from outside their organisation.
Experts have warned that phishing attacks using coronavirus-led messaging are already on the rise, but scams focussed on panicked money movement, money laundering via cryptocurrencies, money muling, and exploitation around business loans are just around the corner.
Check out these 5 FinTechs that are combating the surge in fraudulent activities with their innovative offerings:
Spanish online fraud prevention specialist, buguroo, recently launched its new COVID-19 Online Banking Fraud Resources Centre. The company stated that the development allows consumers and companies to check for scams amongst COVID-related emails, SMS messages, and social posts, thus countering the increasing instances of fraud amidst the pandemic.
The company collects parameters related to the customer’s behavioral biometrics and environment, including smartphone and mouse movements, keystrokes, device profiling, geolocation, etc to protect financial services customers from all known fraud use cases including synthetic identity fraud.
buguroo’s COVID-19 centre offers a centralised way for consumers to check for scams and online fraud. Visitors are able to report and check the legitimacy of messages they receive and access updated information offered in the hub, including the latest fraud campaigns and social engineering tricks being deployed by cybercriminals.
Hungarian startup SEON, rolled out the latest version of its self-service fraud prevention service Intelligence Tool this month. The tool provides businesses access to data taken from the email, phone number, or IP addresses they gather from customers and enables them to collect all accessible data points about a customer’s digital footprint from social media profiles, available via open sources in the public domain.
The company said that “…our solution is appropriate for any merchant. It can be downloaded and integrated almost immediately, has a monthly rolling contract that can be picked up and put down when needed, and also has a trial-period allowing fraud professionals to judge the product for themselves. It’s like Netflix, but for protecting businesses.”
The company’s service accelerates integration times associated with fraud prevention tools. It can be integrated into a business’ existing infrastructure quickly and requires a download via a chrome extension or an API for immediate access to fraud prevention services. The solution is suitable for any business, irrespective of its size, and aims to bolster inclusion and reduce barriers to fraud prevention.
Fraud prevention provider Kount was recently selected by Barclaycard Payments to offer access to fraud detection software for Barclays Transact customers. The fraud module offered to Barclaycard Payments detects fraudulent transactions in real-time, at the point of checkout, and uses complex data linking within the Identity Trust Global Network and AI algorithms.
The Transact fraud module, as Kount stated, helps businesses to prepare for EU’s SCA regulation as well as tackle growing rates of fraud and cybercrime. It also assists enterprises to leverage SCA-approved Transaction Risk Assessment (TRA) exemptions. Kount’s fraud detection software, thus, not only helps customers to fight fraud and prevent unwanted chargebacks, but also helps merchants to maximize sales, improve customer experience, and better prepare for the introduction of SCA.
London-based enterprise risk management solutions provider, Featurespace, last month, announced that its Adaptive Behavioral Analytics is all set to be offered to customers amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. The company’s models for detection and fraud detection are developed through the ARIC Risk Hub. The Hub uses real-time machine learning and unique Adaptive Behavioral Analytics to spot individual anomalies in behavior. The ARIC Risk Hub aims to reduce the volume of ‘good’ transactions that are blocked to stop fraud and suspicious activity (known as ‘false positives’) – typically by over 70%, improving customer experience.
The company’s founder said in a press statement,” Featurespace’s self-learning risk models have responded autonomously and continue to deliver optimal, market-leading acceptance rates. Listening to our global customers, we know they value risk models which update automatically, so they can focus on the important task of prioritizing financial crime investigations and protecting their own customers.”
Germany- based intelligent automation and digital decisioning software provider, ACTICO’s Compliance Suite was recently selected by Swiss company Avaloq for the latter’s banking and wealth management clientele. The company’s Compliance Suite offers automated functionalities including the detection and prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, customer due diligence and KYC, identification of persons of risks, sanction and embargo monitoring, documentation of employee transactions and prevention of insider trading as well as market abuse.
ACTICO Compliance Suite relies on machine learning methods to improve accuracy and reduce workload. As the level of regulation continues to increase, we believe that a combination of machine learning and existing compliance procedures is the way forward for banks and financial services providers