Faster payments pose a real-time threat to fraud monitors

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

In a world that is moving faster than ever before, consumers complete transactions at the register with a simple tap of a phone and transfer money across accounts in seconds.

Mobile banking is on the rise, with 47% of all users reporting that they used it to pay for a product or service within the past month, according to a recent survey from Fiserv. As more consumers are looking for faster payment options, financial institutions must be able to prevent fraud at the same speed to protect their customers and assets.

Recently, NACHA announced the launch of the first phase of same-day ACH for financial institutions in the United States. According to this rule, originating financial institutions will be able to process same-day ACH payments through two new clearing windows provided by the ACH Operators, with complete settlements in as little as 2 hours and 15 minutes.

More than $400 trillion in non-cash payments were handled by global banks in 2015, according to the Boston Consulting Group's 2015 Global Payments Report. Most fraud monitoring tools are equipped to handle processing within days, but with same-day ACH, how will financial institutions be confident in scanning this volume of transactions within hours?

To protect and keep customers, financial institutions need to detect and stop fraudulent electronic payments in real time. It is vital that fraudulent activity is flagged and acted on as close to the payment initiation as possible. With only a few hours until funds are completely settled, financial institutions and their customers are at risk if a fraudulent charge goes unnoticed. Once a payment is released from an originating financial institution, there is a slight chance of recovery.

Predictive models based on consortium intelligence can help stop fraud before a payment is released. Using industry-level data from hundreds of financial institutions, consortium models produce a real-time risk score for every transaction. By scoring transactions in real-time, high risk payments can be suspended immediately for review.

Financial institutions are urged to implement financial crime prevention capabilities to more effectively detect, investigate, prevent and resolve the most significant financial crimes affecting companies around the globe, as well as help to maintain compliance and improve profitability. With real-time fraud detection and prevention, financial institutions can protect their assets and ensure customers can safely take advantage of more convenient and real-time ways of banking.

Andrew Davies is the vice president of global market strategy, Financial Crime Risk Management, Fiserv.