United American Bank Steps Up Fraud Detection Effort

United American Bank, San Mateo, Calif. ($430 million in assets), has purchased software to help it detect suspicious activity and mitigate financial crime, as well as ensure compliance with industry regulations such as the Bank Secrecy Act.

The new solution from Verafin will help the bank combine its anti-money-laundering and fraud detection efforts, which helps simplify Bank Secrecy Act processes and reduce duplication investigations and false positive alerts, resulting in better outcomes with less cost.

“As we continue to grow, we need a comprehensive system to detect potential incidents of fraud and money laundering,” said Joe Simoni, vice president, BSA officer, United American Bank, in a statement. “We had been looking at automated systems since 2006 but couldn’t find the right fit. Verafin piqued our interest when we learned that it had been endorsed by the California Bankers Association.”

Unlike traditional rules-based systems, Verafin uses a behavior-based approach that relies on artificial intelligence to search out patterns of behavior that are unusual for the customer or are indicative of money laundering. This analysis creates a risk score for each customer and when the risk exceeds a certain level, an alert is generated. The system provides all the relevant transactions for the customer as well as the specific pieces of evidence that lead to the alert.