Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) was recently awarded the “AI & Machine Learning Initiative of the Year – Philippines” by the Asian Banking & Finance (ABF) Retail Banking Awards 2022. Meanwhile, its technology partner, GBG, a global specialist in digital identity, won “Fraud Initiative of the Year – PH.”
The ABF Retail Banking Awards is an annual event that honors exceptional banks and finance companies across the Asia Pacific region for their innovative retail products, services, and strategies that have made a positive impact to clients and their industries in the region.
“We have partnered with GBG in transforming our fraud risk management system, which has resulted in enhanced capability in our real-time anti-money laundering monitoring capabilities,” said Nilo Zantua, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of RCBC, in a press release.
“Machine learning and AI (technologies) continue to be an important feature as we rely on this form of analytics to predict what the new fraud types and campaigns could look like and proactively defend against them. This is especially important as traditional rules-based solutions are found to have false positive rates, significantly contributing to alert fatigue and an inefficient approach to resource management,” he adds.
On the part of GBG, Bernardi Susastyo, General Manager of Asia, said, “We are deeply honored to have been recognized for our work in AI & Machine Learning and Fraud Initiative in the Philippines at the ABF Awards. At GBG, we strive to continuously innovate and expand our fraud prevention capabilities to help customers like RCBC achieve the highest levels of security and compliance while building digital trust and minimizing risk.”
“We thank RCBC for their partnership and collaboration in building their enterprise financial crimes management systems. The impressive outcomes that we have achieved together have been critical in preparing RCBC to effectively fight financial crime, and these ABF awards are a testament to our leadership and innovation in the sector,” he adds.
Using automation to efficiently address fraud investigations
With regulators urging institutions in the sector to digitally transform, improve their security profile, and safeguard their risk and compliance management capabilities, RCBC capitalized on the opportunity and deployed GBG’s robust Enterprise Risk Technology Management technology portfolio to integrate its risk capabilities and coordination efforts.
RCBC’s main objective was to address fraud investigations efficiently through automation while improving customer experience across channels.
With GBG on board, RCBC was able to leverage the platform’s user-friendly web client interface and the latest technology and ML models to perform muti-channel monitoring of customer transactions to detect fraud and other complex financial crimes, as well as ensure anti-money laundering (AML) compliance on a single platform.
By delivering these solutions on a single omnichannel platform for a more holistic fraud management strategy, RCBC was similarly able to move from post-transaction monitoring to real-time transaction monitoring and scale resources as financial crime typologies evolve.
“As a leader in this space, GBG aims to focus on fraud management systems that are equipped with deep expertise and insights into how fraud crimes are set to evolve and what type of solutions and innovations are best suited to defend against them,” explained Susastyo. “We are also highly in tune with the evolving regulatory standards that are coming into effect in different markets, enabling us to improve our systems to help customers remain compliant as legislation changes.”
“At GBG, we continue to strive not only to serve as a reputable partner in helping banks and financial institutions at risk against fraudster and financial criminals but also support them in delivering a high level of quality service and solution without compromising on security and customer confidence in their brand,” he adds.
According to Susastyo, the company’s goal is to collaborate with organizations like RCBC to improve their customer experience by fostering trust in the digital world, mitigating financial crime risks, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements in our diverse and complex region.
Fighting increased sophistication in fraud management crucial
With 2022 looking to be a year of fine-tuning digital strategies, 71 percent of technology decision-makers acknowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an acceleration of digital transformation efforts in their organizations.
According to MIT Technology Review Insights, the pandemic has rapidly advanced technology strategies and agile ways of working globally.
As more technologies are adopted in the era of Industry 4.0, it will become even more crucial for financial institutions (FIs) to understand how to combat increased sophistication in fraud management. Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) will also remain crucial in the fight against fraud and financial crimes like money laundering.
In a GBG-commissioned study by the IDC, meanwhile, it was learned that 48.9 percent of banks and FIs consider unsupervised machine learning an important function while 76.8% indicate their preference for either buying financial crime management solutions or using managed services from a solutions provider.
The GBG study entitled “Next Gen Financial Crime Management Solution” also found that identity crime and money laundering will continue to threaten the financial industry while the rise of cryptocurrency trading could lead to a growing risk of crypto-related fraud.
To date, GBG serves more than 20,000 customers across 70 countries, including top-tier banks and fintech companies in the region.