Fraud Week spotlights the top fraud trends to watch in 2023

SAS and the ACFE survey the 2023 fraud landscape for International Fraud Awareness Week, Nov. 13-19

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) estimates that occupational fraud costs businesses more than $4.7 trillion worldwide each year. Companies large and small lose untold billions more to external bad actors annually – and so do ordinary people. No one is impervious to the wide array of consumer fraud threats, from account takeover to identity theft to phishing schemes and many more.

To further global anti-fraud resilience, SAS again teams with the ACFE for International Fraud Awareness Week, Nov. 13-19. The campaign unites individuals and organizations around the globe in a single mission: to proactively minimize fraud’s adverse impacts by promoting anti-fraud awareness and education. SAS will share relevant resources on its social media channels throughout the week and offer these engagement opportunities:

• ACFE webinar: 2023 Top Trends in AML and Fraud: Sanctions Screening, Crypto, Synthetic ID, Payments and More. Tuesday, Nov. 15, noon ET (and later on demand). Exclusive to ACFE members, experts from SAS and Aite-Novarica Group explore the paramount fraud and anti-money laundering (AML) trends on the horizon.
  
• Live Twitter chat: What’s Next? Fraud & AML Trends for 2023 (and Beyond). Friday, Nov. 18, 9 a.m. ET. How will developing trends shape anti-fraud strategies in industries like banking, government, health care and insurance? Join Stu Bradley, Senior Vice President of Fraud and Security Intelligence, and other SAS experts on Twitter for a spirited #SASchat.
• Join the conversation online: Follow #FraudWeek on Twitter for real-world expertise from SAS on payments fraud, identity and digital fraud, AML, financial crimes analytics, claims fraud, unemployment fraud, health care fraud and cost containment, and other fraud topics.

"Curbing the ceaseless torrent of fraud that erodes tax coffers and company balance sheets starts with building awareness,” said ACFE President and CEO Bruce Dorris. “In complement, anti-fraud professionals must be equipped with the technology and know-how necessary to detect and prevent increasingly vexing schemes. On all these fronts, SAS is a steadfast ally and partner throughout Fraud Week and all year long.”

“Our latest anti-fraud technology study with the ACFE revealed that 97% or more of fraud examiners consider analytics an indispensable tool in increasing the amount of fraud prevented and boosting the timeliness, efficiency and accuracy of their fraud detection programs,” said SAS’ Bradley. “While that’s an impressive proof point, there is likely no greater testament to the immense value of analytics in fighting fraud than the innovations and successes of our many customers.”

Recovering millions in fraudulent insurance claims

At least 10% of all insurance claims contain some fraud, according to conservative industry estimates. Rampant fraud costs insurers an estimated $120 billion annually in the US alone, driving consumer insurance premiums steadily upward.

The North Carolina Department of Insurance (NC DoI) is among the government agencies using analytics to investigate malfeasance. Its Criminal Investigation Division recently replaced its outdated record management system – and many of its manual investigative, casework and prosecutorial processes – with an Insurance Crimes Investigation System (ICIS) developed with SAS^® Visual Investigator. Visual analytics quickly spotlights potential case links, connecting digital dots that might otherwise elude human investigators.

“Just seven months after implementing the ICIS, we recovered $6.9 million for the consumers of North Carolina,” said Chet Effler, Division Chief for the Criminal Investigation Division, which saw its average case resolution time drop from 90 to 57 days. “That result shows the success of the program and how operationally sound it has made our field case investigations and agents and operations as a whole.”

Enhancing resiliency through digital transformation

Robust fraud and financial crimes defenses are strategic components in Greater Bank’s digital transformation. The Australian customer-owned bank recently announced that it will employ a powerful, cloud-based fraud detection/prevention and AML solution from SAS to better safeguard its 270,000-plus customers.

Hosted on SAS’ preferred cloud platform, Microsoft Azure, the solution will transform Greater Bank’s cybercrime toolkit into a world-class offering. Implementation will see Greater Bank’s disparate IT systems transformed to meet organizational and regulatory fraud and AML requirements. It will also significantly streamline and reduce manual processes, thereby enhancing the user experience for employees and customers alike.

“In our quest to become a more agile, nimbler organization, SAS is helping us to simplify our IT operations by eliminating the need to manage our own on-premises infrastructure,” said Greg Nyman, Group General Counsel and Company Secretary at Greater Bank. “Not only does this align with our own cloud journey and strategy, but it will enable us to invest more time into creating a safe, secure and reliable environment for our customers that ultimately allows us to focus on growth, building upon a really solid base of established trust. The AML and fraud solution from SAS is grounded in ease of use, real-time data insights and automation, allowing us to act more rapidly than ever before to remedy any potential threats.”

Advancing fraud detection and limiting friction in payments

Lima-based Niubiz is a leading digital payments technology provider for Visa and other financial brands in Peru. The 25-year-old company, which boasts 600,000 customers across merchants, banks and end users, saw fraudulent transactions skyrocket amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In response, Niubiz deployed a comprehensive fraud detection and prevention platform to bolster its anti-fraud capabilities and achieve real-time payments decisioning.

SAS Fraud Management uses machine learning-driven predictive models, enabling Niubiz to analyze millions of operations in milliseconds. The result was a 23% reduction in digital fraud cases last year, mitigating more than 5,500 fraud attempts. Beyond protecting its own customers, the solution also allowed Niubiz to launch a fraud detection service powered by SAS, which incorporates and enriches third-party data to enhance detection.

“More than improving fraud detection rates, we’ve seen a significant increase in authorization approval rates for transactions,” said Edwin Orduz, Fraud Prevention Manager at Niubiz. “This helps ensure the revenue of our customers and betters the experience of their customers by delivering payments without friction.”

Spotlight on financial services

In the world of banking, fraud and financial crime are accelerating in step with the sector’s explosive digital transformation. Curious how some of the industry’s sharpest minds are using the latest innovations in sophisticated analytics, intelligent data and optimized decision making to get the upper hand over fraudsters?

Check out the 2022 SAS Customer Connection for Fraud and Financial Crimes, now available on demand. The virtual event features experts from Truist Financial, Mastercard, CNG Holdings, Niubiz, CipherTrace, Microsoft and SEEBURGER on a variety of hot topics, including ethical AI, cryptocurrency risk, enterprise decisioning, cloud strategy, digital identity, payments modernization and more.