In a bid to stomp out money laundering and financial crime, Mastercard has launched its Trace Financial Crime – TRACE – service for the Asia-Pacific region.
Powered by AI, the network solution identifies potential money laundering activity by tracing large-scale payment data from multiple financial institutions. TRACE seeks to provide a holistic, singular approach to their AML processes to avoid overlapping and time constraining systems.
Asia-Pacific becomes the second market Mastercard has launched the service following a launch in the UK. TRACE has already been integrated across the Philippines’ real-time payment network.
The global payment leader has analysed a rise in financial crime activity within real-time payment transactions affecting businesses across the region of financial crime within real-time payment transactions, with the acceleration of these payments becoming a hotbed for money launderers and mules.
Matthew Driver, Executive VP of Services, Asia-Pacific at Mastercard, said: “The launch of TRACE in Asia Pacific marks a transformative step toward safeguarding the integrity of Real-Time Payments while combatting the corrosive effects of financial crime.
“By ensuring that transactions remain secure and compliant, TRACE helps to protect consumers and financial institutions, while also fostering trust in the digital economy – which will be critical for the region’s economic growth.
“Mastercard is proud to have collaborated with BancNet on its pilot rollout in the Philippines and is ready to collaborate with other stakeholders across the region to implement TRACE to create a stronger, more resilient global financial system.”
Mastercard’s integration of TRACE across Asia-Pacific seeks to help in-house AML protection teams who have often relied on internal infrastructure and data. This is often hindered due to being unable to connect to wider networks to better stamp out financial crime.
Investigating money laundering cases can take weeks to complete, which is why Mastercard’s TRACE has been embedded to leverage its cutting-edge data to trace fraudulent activity across multiple payment networks at a quicker rate.
TRACE incorporates data points across an entire domestic network to identify money mules involved in financial crime such as fraud and scams, giving financial institutions a network-level perspective .
Emmie Reyes, CEO of BancNet, added: “As scams grow more sophisticated, advanced tech-powered prevention and monitoring capabilities are critical. Our partnership with Mastercard and leveraging TRACE gives us and the network participants the intelligence to help detect fraud faster, making scam prevention sharper and more effective.”
