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Be a hero in the fight against payment fraud

Be a hero in the fight against payment fraud

Payments,
5 October 2018 | 4 min read

For payment providers, protecting yourself and your clients against payment fraud remains top-of-mind

As a bank, you will run your own fraud detection solutions, but what happens when one of your corporate clients identifies and reports a fraud? Successful recovery will depend on the ability to locate, stop and recall payments in real time before they settle.

Financial criminal activity continues to thrive despite the development and adoption of increasingly sophisticated security technologies aimed at detecting and preventing payment fraud. For the past three years, instances of payment fraud in the US have been on the rise so much so that 78% of companies acknowledged having been a target in the past last year alone, according to a recent survey.

Corporations are prime targets for payment scams. And given the global nature of the threat, companies throughout the world are at risk.

Once a corporate client detects fraudulent activity, banks best equipped to take corrective action in real time have the best chance of recovering the client’s funds before they settle. 

Be a hero in the fight against fraud

The moment of truth

Imagine that you receive a large international payment request from a corporate client. This type of payment is not unusual for the client so you process the payment as requested. Hours later, your client contacts you in a panic. Having identified the payment to be fraudulent they now want to cancel it.

Your response in this moment is key. Can you locate the payment immediately? Can you stop the payment where it is, and even recall it? Your ability to track the payment in real time and act before it reaches the beneficiary is fundamental to protecting your clients from the lengthy and expensive legal and business processes required to recover the funds.

Banks that aren’t equipped to immediately locate and identify the status of international payments – even after they have passed through their books – leave themselves more vulnerable to fraud. Once a violation is detected, precious little time remains before a scam is carried out. The longer it takes to investigate, the greater the risk.

Banks that aren’t equipped to immediately locate and identify the status of international payments – even after they have passed through their books – leave themselves more vulnerable to fraud.

Equip yourself

Full transparency and end-to-end tracking of cross-border payments made possible by Swift GPI put banks in control exactly when they need it most. At any moment, you can quickly consult the gpi Tracker to see exactly where a payment is in real time and take appropriate action to halt the funds and cancel the payment.

Using the new gpi Stop & Recall service, available as of January 2019, corporates can ask their bank to immediately stop erroneous or fraudulent payments. By sending a stop and recall request, the payment will be automatically stopped and all other gpi banks in the payment’s chain will be notified via the Tracker.

Cyber threats can come in all shapes and sizes. Swift GPI provides the transparency the financial community needs to mitigate these risks, however, there is more that can be done to enhance cyber security to prevent such attacks, as outlined in our Customer Security Programme (CSP). Our new Swift Payment Controls service – which combines real-time monitoring, alerting and blocking of sent payments, with daily reports – is also set to play an important role in fraud prevention and mitigation. It allows institutions to detect high risk payments and take action to mitigate business disruption and financial losses in the event of a back-office compromise.

Proactively putting in place the necessary tools, controls and procedures can help you prevent and mitigate the impact of fraud – not only for yourself but also for your clients.

And next time your client calls you in a panic to stop a fraudulent payment, you’ll be their hero.

To find out more about Swift GPI, Swift Payment Controls and our Customer Security Programme, please contact your Swift Account Manager.

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