As Cybercrime Converges, Fragmented Views of FinCrime Fall Short
For criminals looking to cash in, opportunities to commit fraud and other financial crimes have never been so plentiful.
Advances in payment technology, such as transaction options like PayPal, Venmo, WorldPay, AliPay, WeChat Pay and eWallets such as those from Apple and Qiwi, always open doors to new risks. The recent rise of cryptocurrency is also presenting new challenges. And in the past 12-18 months, the increase in remote work and transactions has put pressure on even the best-prepared institutions.
As Julie Conroy of Aite explains, “The COVID-19 pandemic has starkly defined financial, social, and even financial crime trends throughout 2020 . . . few were prepared for the gigantic wallop that the year had in store.”1
Unfortunately, most financial institutions’ case management tools across their enterprise have not kept pace with the rate of change. In fact, according to a recent McKinsey report, it is estimated that $800 billion to $2 trillion in proscribed transactions is moved through the global institutional system annually —yet authorities intercept less than 1% of those amounts.2 Investigators are trying to fight sophisticated criminals with technology that is the equivalent of having one hand behind their back, while financial institutions are trying to satisfy their customers and protect their business interests with tools that are not fully up to those tasks, either.
The key to this struggle lies in the segmented structure of the teams and tools that financial institutions have in place to fight criminal activity. While different types of financial crimes have begun to converge, most organizations still have their analysts addressing specific crimes instead of specific customers without a consolidated view across the FI.
