Mastercard Launches Tool to Help Firms Trace Money Laundering

Mastercard is bringing its TRACE financial crime-fighting and anti-money-laundering tool to the Asia-Pacific region.

TRACE uses “timely and large-scale payments data from multiple financial institutions” to provide intelligence beyond a “financial institution’s siloed view,” allowing financial crime tracing across payment networks, according to a Thursday (Feb. 13) news release.

Consumers and businesses in APAC are increasingly using real-time payments to settle accounts within seconds rather than days, per the release.

“However, this speed has also made it a target for money launderers and ‘mules,’ who try to evade detection by moving funds rapidly between multiple accounts,” the release said. “Oftentimes, criminals also involve the accounts of unwitting civilians through methods such as romance and investment scams.”

Financial institutions have typically used “semi-manual” methods and in-house artificial intelligence to detect crime, but often lack a “network-level perspective” to track far-reaching crime, according to the release.

“TRACE incorporates critical data points across an entire domestic network to identify money mules involved in financial crime … giving financial institutions a network-level perspective they wouldn’t otherwise have,” the release said.

The first APAC rollout of TRACE was in the Philippines in partnership with interbank network BancNet, which onboarded 36 domestic banks, per the release.

Also on Thursday, PYMNTS posted an interview with Mzukisi Rusi, vice president for product development: authentication products at Entersekt, about the threat of account takeovers to banks and their customers.

Criminals use advanced technology to pose as legitimate individuals, which furthers their ability to keep victims and banks from knowing they’ve been compromised. A multifaceted approach to fraud prevention is required, and part of this approach is getting away from passwords, including one-time passwords, because credential attacks are still the top cause of account takeovers, Rusi said.

“Banking has come a long way,” he said. “Just a few years ago, passwords were the main authentication methods. But now we have biometrics, we have AI-powered fraud detection and real-time analysis to make transactions safer than ever.”