How Nedbank Breaks Down Silos to Fight Financial Crime - Video

Criminals have access to many of the same technologies used by financial institutions to stop them – but without the barriers that often hinder prevention. At most banks, various teams work on fraud prevention, identity checking and financial crime stoppage. Disconnects across the enterprise between teams and the tools they use give criminals a valuable opportunity.

In order to strengthen its defenses, Nedbank, one of South Africa’s largest banks, created an integrated financial crime risk management framework that uses FICO technology. The bank’s Risk Intelligence Centre (RIC) consolidates relationships between entities and various financial crime risk factors into one comprehensive view.

Here’s how this initiative, which won a 2024 FICO® Decisions Award for AI, Machine Learning and Optimization, works.

Consolidated Data for Better Crime Prevention

The RIC consolidates data from multiple systems and decisions from different committees, streamlining processes such as offboarding relationships or closing accounts due to financial crime, and making this critical information available across the enterprise. It is powered by FICO technology – decision services, an application studio, and identity resolution. The decision service harmonizes all known risk information to make informed decisions.

“We needed the right technology that could consolidate all relationships with an entity and integrate known financial crime risk factors into a unified view,” said Riana Horn, Risk Intelligence Centre, Nedbank. “Our collaboration with FICO is reshaping the landscape of our financial crime risk management, providing a comprehensive and interconnected approach to safeguard against multifaceted threats.”

The RIC was designed to enhance existing decision engines and detection systems, spanning client compliance, credit affordability, suspicious transaction monitoring, transactional fraud detection, employment and supplier vetting, among others.

Robust Identity Checking and Flexible Design

“A critical requirement was the establishment of robust identity resolution capabilities that can ingest data from internal and external sources,” Horn added. “That is the pivotal role played by the FICO Identity Resolution Engine. It enables the creation of a singular entity view, the clustering of links between individuals and organizations, and the identification of relationships with Nedbank. It will empower us to explore further degrees of separation between potential criminal groups and other accounts, staff, suppliers, etc. — these data separations allow financial crime to thrive. The sophisticated capabilities of FICO technology position us to proactively address and mitigate these risks.

“The RIC’s key advantage lies in its flexible design capability, allowing us to incorporate new data without necessitating a redesign of our core system architecture. This allow us to ingest data dispersed across legacy and target architecture without any major changes being needed,” said Horn. “The collaborative synergy between FICO Platform and our evolving cloud architecture will enable a seamless migration of the decision service to FICO Platform in the next phase, preserving data integrity and reinforcing our commitment to proactive financial crime prevention.”

“Nedbank's approach to financial crime risk management truly stands out, showcasing a deep understanding of the interconnected nature of risks across diverse relationships,” said Andrew Birmingham, editor, Mi3 and one of the FICO Decisions Awards judges. “The establishment of robust identity resolution capabilities enabled a view of the clustering of links between individuals and organizations critical to finding nefarious activity. We were also particularly impressed by the innovative thinking that went into breaking down the siloed structures typical of banking operations."

How FICO Can Help You Fight Fraud and Financial Crime

• Understand how FICO helps financial institutions balance fraud prevention and customer experience
• Read the white paper The changing face of application fraud
• Explore FICO’s fraud solutions
• Discover the power of FICO Platform