Building trust and accessibility with effective fraud prevention

Why fraud prevention, and why Veriff?

Munna combines the practical skills of a software engineer with an analyst’s abilities to find patterns in apparently disparate data and a consultant’s flair for collaborating and finding effective solutions. 

“I worked for another tech giant helping them figure out how to stop fraud,” says Munna. “That got me down into the details of fraud prevention; how different individuals commit fraud in different ways, and how different entities perceive fraud.”

Munna’s skillset and experience made him a perfect fit to lead our fraud prevention product team. Meanwhile, working for Veriff appealed to him as it fulfilled three key criteria.

“Is the company making a product that I would want to use, and do I know somebody who will use it? And if I come onboard, can I make that product better?”

In Veriff’s case, there were use cases that he immediately recognized.

“IDV is this seamless flow of connecting with a service provider without having to leave your home. I could easily see my mum using this to access a bank account, for example. In fact, I sometimes use our clients’ products - ..clients' products - I actually use one of the customer organizations I onboarded to regularly send my mother money."

At the same time, he was struck by the work culture he encountered at Veriff during the interview process.

“When you actually see how people interact with each other and feel like they enjoy what they are doing – I wanted to be part of it,” he says. “Who doesn’t want to look forward to coming to work every day, right?” 

How the internet enables fraud

As all aspects of our lives have moved increasingly online, so have criminals. Unfortunately, the world of online transactions offers them the opportunity to commit fraud rapidly, and at scale. Many traditional scams, such as those involving impersonation of authority, are often very easy to carry out online. At the same time, technology is just as useful and appealing to criminals as it is to the rest of us.

“I’m pretty sure you’ll have used some Snapchat filters,” comments Munna, “but there are some not-so-nice uses of those readily available digital manipulation techniques, be it facial manipulation, video, audio etcetera.”

“We’ve seen different fraudsters from very coordinated networks using readily available software and open-source platforms to cause havoc for some of our clients. Because of our ability to see the wider picture we’re able to catch them, but this is on a fairly continuous rise.”

However, although his role means he comes into contact with a lot of the negative aspects of life online, Munna still sees the digital world as an important force for good.

“A lot of very talented people are using it for the betterment of society, but sadly there’s always going to be that small groupof individuals who take the best and put it to the worst use possible.”

Protecting the vulnerable while ensuring accessibility

Munna sees Veriff as having an important role in protecting more vulnerable users such as the elderly. 

“Technology has evolved so fast that some individuals struggle to keep up with it, they trust the process more than they should,” he comments. This is where his fraud prevention team come in.

“It’s our job to make sure that trust is validated by us, because we want to build trust, but we want to make sure it’s the right kind of trust for the right purpose.” 

The team’s fraud solutions, and approaches evolve to meet new threats, supporting businesses as they grow and are exposed to new risks.

“There is a sense of us bringing the knowledge from everything we have seen, and by ‘us’ I mean the entire team brings their research, their own idea of what’s happening and how it’s happening.”

As Munna explains, the team works collaboratively with Veriff's customer organizations, asking the right questions to understand their existing architecture and countermeasures. 

“How are they dealing with fraud, what are the controls they have in place? So that we don’t repeat the same controls, we put in place checks which help and complement theirs.”

At the same time, he believes effective fraud prevention needs to be balanced with accessibility. Ultimately, the aim is to make things as easy as possible for genuine customers trying to access a service while fraudsters remain locked out, no matter how hard they try.