Business Reporter – Technology – European banking giant uncovers hidden fraud threat with Cleafy’s FxDR

For global banks, safeguarding operations is an ongoing battle. Yet some threats are so sophisticated they operate invisibly, slipping through even the most advanced security systems and embedding themselves in routine transactions.

A major European bank, renowned for its forward-thinking approach, grasped that fighting fraud isn’t merely about responding when it surfaces. In a world of instant payments, reacting only at the transaction level means facing the fallout. True prevention involves spotting and neutralising threats before they even begin to unfold.

Recently, this bank faced an unseen enemy as its corporate channels were targeted by an intricate fraud scheme of co-ordinated attacks, all designed to orchestrate large-scale fraud. With Cleafy’s advanced fraud detection technology, the bank didn’t just respond to the immediate threat but overhauled its entire security strategy.

The attack underscored how sophisticated fraud can be, and the critical need for real-time detection to uncover and address the full scale of the threat before it leads to significant losses.

Aiming for billions

With operations across numerous countries and millions of customers, a major European banking institution encountered a highly sophisticated wave of attacks on its corporate banking channels, highlighting the growing ingenuity of threat actors.

Corporate banking fraud is notoriously difficult to detect because of the sheer complexity and scale of transactions. Unlike consumer banking, corporate transfers often involve huge sums of money, frequent international payments and multiple layers of approval – creating a perfect environment for fraudsters to blend in. Fraudsters exploit these characteristics by mimicking legitimate transactions, making subtle changes that are hard to spot.

Traditional anti-fraud measures often focus on flagging outliers, but in corporate banking many “outliers” are part of routine operations. Add to this the sophisticated techniques attackers use – such as injecting malicious code mid-transaction – and the challenge becomes even greater. The result? Fraud can go undetected for months! 

The aim was simple: exploit real-time vulnerabilities to steal vast amounts of money without raising alarms. Each attack sought to syphon between €1 million and €10 million, with several attacks occurring each day. Despite the bank’s robust security measures, the criminals managed to blend in, triggering no red flags from its conventional anti-fraud systems, as was the case here, until more advanced tools, like Cleafy’s FxDR platform, were employed.