Ericsson beefs up money laundering and fraud protection

The aim is to mitigate financial risks, detect and prevent fraud, and secure ecosystems for Ericsson’s customer base, including operators, enterprises, and banks.

The collaboration provides ‘cutting-edge tools for combating financial crime in the current complex financial landscape,’ claims the release. Examples of this crime are cited as sophisticated fraud schemes and money laundering tactics that exploit system vulnerabilities.

Ericsson’s Mobile Financial Services division supports more than 114 million active users in 24 countries, we’re told, and processes more than 36 billion transactions annually, topping $501 billion. It’s open architecture and API offering are pitched as enabling rapid deployment and scaling of services for digital wallet enterprises and digital banking providers.

“Our collaboration with INFORM aims to elevate the value we provide to our customers in the face of increasingly sophisticated threats,” said Michael Wallis-Brown, Head of Ericsson Mobile Financial Services. “As financial crime and malicious activities become more advanced,  utilizing INFORM’s cutting-edge AML and fraud management capabilities alongside Ericsson solutions will help CSPs and enterprises to better detect, prevent, and combat these threats. This potential enhancement would not only safeguard their operations but also support their growth in a secure and resilient environment.”

Roy Prayikulam, Senior Vice President Risk & Fraud at INFORM, added: “We are excited to expand our collaboration with Ericsson to provide our cutting-edge RiskShield platform for Hybrid AI-powered AML and fraud management to their customers worldwide. By combining our advanced analytics and dynamic rule-making capabilities with Ericsson’s extensive reach and expertise in mobile financial services, we are confident that we can help create a safer and more secure financial ecosystem for all.”

Ask anyone whose job it is to measure this stuff and they’ll tell you fraud, scams and hacks are on the rise, and while AI has been cited as a potential new string to the bow to defend against them, it’s also providing criminals with new ways to attack.  

A recent report by voice security firm Hiya claimed scams which use AI-generated voice-cloning technology to impersonate people or organisations increased in the first half of 2024, and it expects that voice-cloning impersonation scam tactics will continue to be on the rise in 2024 and beyond.