Guardian Analytics Announces New Real-time Behavioral Analytics Solution to Prevent Wire Fraud Across All Banking Channels

SAN DIEGO, April 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- NACHA PAYMENTS 2013 -- Guardian Analytics, the market leader in behavior-based anomaly detection solutions for preventing banking fraud, today announced their latest innovation – a real-time, risk-based wire fraud prevention solution. The new solution, FraudMAP^® Wire, addresses the escalating problem of fraudulent wires initiated across all banking channels—call center, fax, branch, email and online. FraudMAP Wire uniquely uses behavioral analytics to identify suspicious wires and employs real-time automated intervention to speed the processing of low risk wires and automatically stop high-risk wires from leaving the bank. With FraudMAP Wire, financial institutions can prevent fraudulent wires, reduce the costs of manual wire reviews, and enhance customer service.

Wire fraud is a growing and costly problem for financial institutions and their commercial and retail clients. According to the 2013 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey released by the Association for Finance Professionals (AFP), more than one in ten corporations experienced wire fraud, double the rate in the 2012 survey. Criminals use social engineering tactics or online account takeover to acquire the information needed to initiate high-dollar fraudulent wire transfers across various banking channels and bypass traditional operational controls. Attacks continually evolve and use new combinations of channels – for example, Guardian Analytics recently reported on a new scheme in which criminals use an online chat feature to social engineer a customer service agent into releasing a fraudulent wire. Industry analysts are also reporting that wire fraud through call centers is on the rise.

"Criminals love wire transfers for the same reasons that banking customers do – they are fast and well-suited to move large sums of money," said Guardian Analytics Founder and Vice President of Products and Services, Craig Priess. "Most financial institutions have thrown manual resources or generalized rules-based solutions at the problem, which are high cost and prone to missing fraud. FraudMAP Wire will fundamentally change financial institutions' wire processing operations, using analytics and automation to increase fraud prevention effectiveness and operational efficiency."

FraudMAP Wire is the next application of the company's proven and patented Dynamic Account Modeling™ technology in use by over two hundred and fifty financial institutions to prevent fraud in online banking, mobile banking and ACH transactions. The new solution is delivered on the same fraud prevention framework as FraudMAP Online, FraudMAP Mobile, and FraudMAP ACH, offering financial institutions a single platform to manage risk across multiple channels and multiple payment types.

In addition to reducing fraud, FraudMAP Wire offers key operational and customer service benefits including:

• Minimizing manual reviews and lowers fraud operations costs by allowing all low risk wire transactions to be automatically processed
• Reducing customer interaction/verification to just the most high risk wires, rather than all wires matching generic risk or rules-based criteria
• Increase customer satisfaction with expedited wire processing

Providing real-time risk analysis and streamlined workflow for managing wire checks for outbound, inbound and book transfer wires, FraudMAP Wire:

• Receives all wire transactions in real-time from a financial institution's wire processing solution and risk scores each wire – regardless of origin (call center, fax, branch, email and online)
• Instantly analyzes each wire transaction across a wide range of potential risk factors for any anomalies in originator or receiver behavior
• Automatically releases low risk wires for payment and intervenes to hold high risk ones for investigation
• Prioritizes high risk wires for review and provides innovative visual analytics for rapid investigation
• Provides integrated workflow for investigation and execution of final wire release status

Deployed as a software as a service model with no rules to write or maintain, FraudMAP Wire offers fast time to security and requires little to no ongoing maintenance.  Contact the company for pricing and availability.

About Guardian Analytics
Guardian Analytics is the pioneer and leading provider of behavior-based fraud prevention solutions for financial institutions. With over 250 customers, more financial institutions trust Guardian's SaaS solutions to protect their clients' assets and conform to FFIEC expectations for anomaly detection than any other solution. Based in Mountain View, Calif., Guardian Analytics is privately held with venture funding from Foundation Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Split Rock Partners, Triangle Peak Partners, and Costanoa Venture Capital. For more information, please visit www.GuardianAnalytics.com.

SOURCE Guardian Analytics, Inc.