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GUEST OPINION: Today’s constantly changing economy has created an uncertain business and financial environment for organisations to navigate. However, this uncertainty does not mean that security, fraud, and money laundering risks are completely out of businesses’ control. In fact, with the latest technology and solutions, businesses can have greater foresight and visibility over the risks to their organisations before criminals have a chance to carry out their plans.

Matching financial criminals’ relentless approaches

Boards and executives could not be blamed for feeling somewhat exasperated by the ongoing and broad range of threats to their businesses, particularly in light of the various high-profile data breaches and attacks of 2022. Unfortunately, this mindset is exactly what bad actors are hoping for, so that organisations remain vulnerable to further attacks rather than responding quickly to prevent further threats.

When it comes to financial crime prevention, the best offence is a strong defence. Financial criminals around the world are continuously investing in new methods, technologies, and resources to carry out their crimes, including financial fraud and money laundering. Artificial intelligence (AI) is also being commonly used to automate their methods of illegally finding, accessing, and using data.

To combat these levels of threats and approaches, businesses need to fight fire with fire. AI and machine learning (ML), while being used by criminals, can also be used by organisations to prevent crime. This could include detecting suspicious patterns of behaviour, automatically carrying out actions to mitigate the risk or impact of bad actors, and then further improving the organisation’s understanding of financial crime threats to continue to keep the organisation secure.

With an ever improving and automated approach to fraud prevention, businesses can confidently mitigate the risks of attacks and the impacts of criminal behaviour. Without this approach, it is impossible for businesses to keep up with the pace and resources of financial criminals, as research shows they are only becoming better financed and more technologically savvy with time.

Strengthening your first line of defence

Every layer of an organisation that a financial criminal breaks through exponentially increases their threat to the organisation and its customers. All it can take is for one ‘open door’ to be found within an organisation to get enough information to illegally open other doors to obtain further information and private data. Consequently, the first line of defence will always be the most important for any organisation.

This starts with the onboarding process. As bad actors are becoming increasingly experienced, machine learning and predictive models can help organisations identify new patterns of behaviour when criminals are applying new tactics. Intelligent fraud detection analytics and AI can then be used on an ongoing basis to help businesses automate learning and stay on top of evolving fraudulent behaviour patterns. For good customers, this means the onboarding process is faster and smoother as their secure behaviours are identified quickly. For risky customers, the process for identifying and managing their risk is faster and more accurate every time, even as the criminals’ changing tactics and patterns evolve.

As boards and leadership teams are exploring ways to stay ahead of financial criminals and their methods, relying solely on scaled human resources will not be enough. To match the level of sophistication and the relentlessness of criminals’ attacks, predictive analytics, powered by AI and ML, is critical.

Carol Chris is Regional General Manager for Australia and New Zealand, GBG

Digital location, identity and identity fraud software provider GBG Group has acquired digital location, identity and identity fraud software provider Verifi Identity Services commonly known as Cloudcheck, a provider of electronic Identity Verification (IDV), and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) solutions in New Zealand.