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Enhance Abnormal Activity Monitoring Tools to Detect Fraud Patterns

Look for specific patterns that signal fraud.  If block lists are blunt instruments, this project starts to build surgical scalpels to fine-tune which patterns of activity signify a possible fraud attempt. Flexible configurations will allow us to cover patterns related to velocity, product, out-of-the-ordinary activity, cross-channel activity, and idle activity fraud indicators.

The plan is to add a new configuration to the existing Abnormal Activity Monitoring toolkit, allowing CUs to configure settings that watch transactions for certain patterns, such as:

• Velocity – More than xx transactions, or a xxx% increase in transaction volume, over a specified # of days
• Out-of-the-ordinary – Transactions of more than $xx.xx, or a xx% increase in total transaction amounts, over a specified # of days
• Idle activity – Watch for a volume of transactions that occur after a period of xxx days of inactivity

The Abnormal Activity Monitoring Dashboard will analyze activity and provide a list of accounts that fit the pattern, allowing the CU to either add the member to one of the new Block Lists or take other appropriate action.  This dashboard approach will also allow CUs and our AuditLink experts to fine-tune the pattern configurations, in anticipation of future automated, interactive denial-of-service blocks.

According to Jim Vilker, NCCO, CAMS, VP of Professional Services for AuditLink, “Regulatory bodies are not letting up on credit unions regarding the ongoing monitoring of anomalous activity that may be related to criminal and fraudulent activity.  They’re making credit unions the new financial cops of the country.  This pressure is causing many credit unions to spend on expensive ancillary products that in most cases are simply not worth the money, are unnecessary for the size and complexity of the institution, and are fraught with data governance issues.  CU*Answers will surpass these systems in the coming years as we analyze the probabilities of these patterns causing loss and attach them to posting and authorization programs that will stop the transaction in its tracks.”

Status: Project #53105 was implemented in the 21.05 release.

View an excerpt from the 2021 Leadership Conference about a new AuditLink monitoring service

What’s Next?

Test against fraud patterns and stop incoming transactions before they post.  Build new routines to test activity against fraud pattern tests you’ve activated and automatically put accounts onto your block lists.

Status: Still in the early design phase. 

AuditLink Fraud Monitoring and Consulting Services

AuditLink experts can configure your CU*BASE Abnormal Activity Monitoring tools for FREE, or provide free consulting to credit unions who want to go it alone but need help getting started.  AuditLink also offers daily monitoring services to actually work the daily alerts this tool generates.  Visit the Store or contact AuditLink today!

Feedback

Chefs for these recipes:  Jim Vilker and Keegan Daniel

Have thoughts or ideas about these changes? We’d love to hear your feedback. Use the Comment Section below.