Penetrating the Parallel World of Professional Fraud

Professional fraud fighters see films like Catch Me If You Can and think of the past, when a clever criminal passing bad checks could be imagined as a star-studded Hollywood frolic.  

Today, there’s nothing cinematic about it. Fraud is big, bad, and getting worse. High-dollar business payments are the most coveted scores in the felonious world of fraud. 

Payments have evolved throughout the years into the online and instant rails, and that expansion creates an irresistible target for full-time fraudsters. The losses are staggering. 

The Nasdaq report Impacts of Financial Crime on the US Economy estimates that “illicit funds flowing through the financial system topped $845 billion in 2023, or just under 3.1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”  

Understanding the Career Fraudster 

That GDP comparison qualifies fraud as an industry “similar in size and scale [to] the accommodation and food services sector, which represents 3.3% of US output, and slightly greater than the share of the mining and utilities sectors combined, at 3.0%,” per Nasdaq. That’s why payments need shrewd, intuitive guardians. 

With September being National Insider Threat Awareness Month (NITAM), and the second half seeing a parade of conferences addressing fraud, it’s time to get serious. 

For Dalit Amitai, Bottomline Head of Risk Solutions, she increasingly sees fraud as one many-headed beast. And she’s hunting for that big game. To do so, you need to be able to visualize it. So, Amitai learned to imagine the world of the enemy. 

“I think what drew me to fraud and risk is the ability to help protect customers from bad actors. Being exposed to this domain made me realize that there is a parallel world out there of fraudsters. Today, it feels as if it’s a job fraudsters apply for,” Amitai said. 

Bad actors can be specialists: some target external banking systems, while others may operate as inside fraudsters. Either way, it’s terrible for the legitimate businesses and clients that end up paying the costs. 

"The fact that we can fight this and help our customers prevent loss and protect their reputation, so their customers trust their money is safe with banks, is a major positive for me," she said.  

Asked how her cyberfraud and risk management experience informs her choices as a Head of Risk Solutions, Amitai said “One side of it is always to be ahead of the game and see what the industry needs.” Whether that takes the form of assisting UK users to comply with new regulations like Failure to Prevent Fraud, or quickly detecting and responding to a cyber threat in North America that originated as a business email compromise (BEC) hack, she said a key ingredient in the recipe for success is agility.  

That’s an essential strategic goal. 

The Agility Factor 

Agility takes a variety of shapes. “We want to make our customers can respond quickly to new fraud typologies, as a technology organization, as a technology vendor, one way to enable our customers is to create no-code configuration solutions and self-learning tools.” 

“In addition, we need to stay agile internally and partner with our customers” Amitai said. That means keeping bandwidth available for ongoing research as threats evolve and for changing market conditions as well, to say nothing of inevitable interruptions to plans. 

“All functions of the business are in full alignment, Product, Technology, and Business, work in lockstep to serve our customers with constantly changing business needs,” she said, offering multiple examples, including reducing the duration of implementation from months to weeks, and addressing new regulations. 

An intense and swift focus on customer outcomes also helps cement relationships. 

AI is a Journey 

Looking to 2025 and beyond, the B2B payments sector faces scrutiny from regulators, legacy technology that needs updating by the week, and sophisticated fraud threats. 

The answer du jour for everything is Machine Learning and Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI). Its wonders are widely extolled, but there’s a time for Gen AI in the life and complexity of a company. 

“Customers do not typically rush into using new technologies without full assessment of the implications, or the benefits and ROI they will bring,” Amitai said. All angles need to be considered, from the mathematical models behind Machine Learning and Gen AI to proper secure handling of data while using such new technologies in the Cloud.  

“Choosing cutting technology requires thorough diligence. As it relates to Fraud solutions, in addition to evaluating the technology, customer evaluate detection models as well. Models, need to be 100% proven.”  

Amitai thinks that the transition to using Gen AI is a journey. Customers tend to start using it as “a very good assistive tool” across numerous use cases. Amitai expects the use of Gen-AI to grow as customers come up with processes and controls that guarantee precision of tools.