Mastercard rolls-out network-level AI-powered solution against financial crime

Together with BancNet, it has already onboarded 36 Philippine banks.

Mastercard has launched TRACE (Trace Financial Crime) in Asia Pacific, a network-level solution using artificial intelligence (AI) to identify and prevent money laundering and financial crime.

Mastercard’s first Asia Pacific rollout of TRACE was in the Philippines in collaboration with local interbank network BancNet, with BancNet having already onboarded 36 domestic banks.

TRACE will use payments data from multiple financial institutions.

Mastercard developed TRACE to provide a network-level perspective on illicit activities, as well as provide proactive alerts to banks about suspicious accounts.

Financial institutions largely relied on semi-manual methods or in-house AI solutions to combat crime. However, these typically rely on their own data and lack a network-level perspective. Investigations also takes weeks to complete, Mastercard said.

TRACE incorporates critical data points across an entire domestic network to identify money mules  involved in financial crime (such as frauds, scams, etc.), giving financial institutions a network level perspective they wouldn’t otherwise have.