The Mits technology, developed by Vocalink, will allow banks to close multiple mule accounts and disrupt large money laundering rings.
Mules have to launder funds fraudulently secured due to authorized push payment (APP) fraud, phishing or malware scams.
These are deployed by different methods such as spam e-mails, adverts on genuine recruitment websites through connecting with people via CVs available online, instant messaging and adverts in newspapers.
Pay.UK has selected the technology to fight against APP fraud, under which customers are deceived through sending funds to bogus accounts.
Through aggregating payments data from multiple banks and overlaying it with advanced analytics and algorithms, the Mits will enable to track suspicious payments, as they move between various accounts disregarding of whether the payment amount is split between multiple accounts or those accounts belong to the same or different financial institutions.
The Mits will help form a visual map of where and when money has moved, enabling to offer new intelligence to fraud teams for taking appropriate action.
Vocalink Services EVP David Rich said: “The innovative data science behind MITS enables us to spot and trace illicit accounts like never before.
“By bringing together payments data from multiple banks in a secure way, we are able to deliver a new kind of intelligence that analyses billions of transactions, connects the dots and then identify how the laundered money is split, layered and dispersed across the whole banking network.”
During a series of pilots, the Mits technology has been used to investigate thousands of UK accounts with suspicious activity. It helped to identify a significant percentage of mules.
The technology has also enabled to uncover multiple large and well-concealed money laundering rings.
In addition, the Mits allowed to identify hundreds of mule accounts, which were earlier unnoticed by the authorities and supported banks to improve fraud prevention processes.
