Australia’s Big 4 banks ‘exit’ thousands of suspected mule accounts – Security – Software – Financial Services


Australia’s ‘Big 4’ banks – CBA, NAB, ANZ and Westpac – flagged and/or “exited” thousands of bank accounts in the last financial year, aided by AI and other anti-scam detection capabilities.



The numbers are contained in new documents filed with a parliamentary review of Australia’s major four banks.

While there is some inconsistency in the way each bank describes the situation, the commonality is a sizable number of accounts either being flagged for investigation or removed, courtesy of recent anti-scam and anti-fraud technology investments.

This includes the use of BioCatch – described as an “interbank, behaviour- and device-based, fraud and scams intelligence-sharing network” – that only revealed its list of Australian bank users last month.

ANZ first described its use of AI and related technologies last year, when it first released figures to the inquiry.

At the time, it pointed to “the deployment of more than 170 new sophisticated algorithms and other biometrics capabilities [to] prevent customer funds being sent to cybercriminals”, including a “significant investment in a new capability using AI and machine learning technology” to target mule accounts.

In this year’s disclosures, the bank pointed to its use of a specific “mule detection model” as a contributor to the significant increase in accounts investigated and flagged.

NAB – which also had a significant year-on-year increase in flagged accounts – specifically pointed to its use of BioCatch as enhancing its ability “to proactively identify and block potential mule accounts before they receive illicit funds.”

Westpac – which recommended more than double the amount of account ‘exits’ this year compared to last – attributed the increase to an “uplift in illegitimate bank account detection capabilities, which means we are proactively detecting more.”

On the flipside, Westpac said, “gross scammed funds and customer scam losses have both decreased by 31 percent and 29 percent respectively due to improved bank detection and prevention measures.”

CBA – the only bank to provide actual account ‘exit’ numbers – noted that it “continues to invest in new technologies and enhance existing detection technologies for mule accounts” but added there’s a lack of uniformity in the various capabilities that banks are implementing, which offer “varied sophistication and accuracy.”

All the banks noted that accounts could be flagged for a variety of reasons, not just because they had received money and were suspected to be operated by or complicit with scammers.

Some accounts are flagged before they receive funds, or based on intelligence the bank receives.

In other cases, the account holder may unwittingly be tricked into receiving scam-related proceeds, or the account may be opened with either stolen or sold identity documents.



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