With fraud losses crossing billions, Australian institutions need smarter fraud screening tools to protect both compliance and customer trust.

Fraud is now one of the biggest threats facing Australia’s financial system. Scamwatch data shows Australians lost over AUD 3 billion in 2024 to scams — a figure that continues to rise with digital banking adoption and real-time payment rails like the New Payments Platform (NPP).

Traditional fraud systems, built on static rules, simply can’t keep pace. That’s why financial institutions are turning to fraud screening tools powered by AI and behavioural intelligence to screen transactions, customers, and devices in real time.

But what exactly are fraud screening tools, and how should Australian businesses evaluate them?

What Are Fraud Screening Tools?

Fraud screening tools are systems that automatically review transactions, user activity, and onboarding data to identify and block potentially fraudulent activity. They act as gatekeepers — scoring risk in milliseconds and deciding whether to approve, block, or escalate.

They’re used across industries:

• Banks & Credit Unions: Screening wire transfers, cards, and online banking logins.
• Fintechs: Vetting high volumes of digital onboarding and payment activity.
• Remittance Providers: Screening cross-border corridors for fraud and laundering.
• E-commerce Platforms: Stopping card-not-present fraud and refund abuse.
• Crypto Exchanges: Detecting suspicious wallets and transaction flows.

Why Fraud Screening Tools Are Critical in Australia

1. Instant Payments Raise the Stakes

The NPP enables near-instant transactions. Fraudsters exploit this speed to move funds through mule accounts before detection. Tools must screen transactions in real time, not in batch.

2. Scam Surge in Social Engineering

Romance scams, impersonation fraud, and deepfake-driven attacks are spiking. Many involve “authorised push payments” where victims willingly transfer money. Screening tools must flag unusual transfer behaviour even when the customer approves it.

3. Regulatory Expectations

ASIC and AUSTRAC expect robust fraud and AML screening. Institutions must prove that they have effective, adaptive screening tools — not just compliance checklists.

4. Rising Cost of Compliance

Investigating false positives consumes massive resources. The right screening tools should cut operational costs by reducing unnecessary alerts.

Key Features of Effective Fraud Screening Tools

1. Real-Time Transaction Analysis

• Millisecond-level scoring of payments, logins, and device sessions.
• Monitors velocity (multiple payments in quick succession), device fingerprints, and geo-location mismatches.

2. AI & Machine Learning Models

• Detect anomalies beyond static rule sets.
• Learn continuously from confirmed fraud cases.
• Reduce false positives by distinguishing genuine unusual behaviour from fraud.

3. Behavioural Biometrics

• Analyse how users type, swipe, or navigate apps.
• Identify “bots” and fraudsters impersonating legitimate customers.

4. Multi-Channel Coverage

• Banking transfers, cards, digital wallets, remittances, and crypto — all screened in one platform.

5. Customer & Merchant Screening

• KYC/KYB integration to verify identity documents.
• Sanctions, PEP, and adverse media screening.

6. Explainability & Audit Trails

• “Glass-box” AI ensures every flagged transaction comes with a clear reason code for investigators and regulators.

7. Case Management Integration

• Alerts are fed directly into case management systems, enabling investigators to act quickly.

How Fraud Screening Tools Detect Common Threats

Account Takeover (ATO)

• Detects logins from unusual devices or IPs.
• Flags high-value transfers after suspicious logins.

Mule Networks

• Screens for multiple accounts tied to one device.
• Detects unusual fund flows in and out with little balance retention.

Synthetic Identity Fraud

• Flags inconsistencies across ID documents, IP addresses, and behavioural signals.

Romance & Investment Scams

• Detects repetitive small transfers to new beneficiaries.
• Flags high-value transfers out of pattern with customer history.

Crypto Laundering

• Screens wallet addresses against blacklists and blockchain analytics databases.

Red Flags That Tools Should Catch

• Transactions at unusual hours (e.g., midnight high-value transfers).
• Beneficiary accounts recently opened and linked to multiple small deposits.
• Sudden change in login behaviour (new device, new location).
• Customers reluctant to provide source-of-funds during onboarding.
• Repeated failed logins followed by success and rapid transfers.

Evaluating Fraud Screening Tools: Questions to Ask

1. Does the tool support real-time screening across NPP and cross-border payments?
2. Is it powered by adaptive AI that learns from new scams?
3. Can it reduce false positives significantly?
4. Does it integrate with AML systems for holistic compliance?
5. Is it AUSTRAC-aligned, with SMR-ready reporting?
6. Does the vendor provide local market expertise in Australia?

The Cost of Weak Screening Tools

Without robust fraud screening, institutions face:

• Direct losses from fraud payouts.
• Regulatory fines for inadequate controls.
• Reputational damage — customer trust is hard to regain once lost.
• Operational drain from chasing false positives.

Spotlight: Tookitaki’s FinCense Fraud Screening Tools

FinCense, Tookitaki’s end-to-end compliance platform, is recognised for its advanced fraud screening capabilities.

• Real-Time Monitoring: Screens transactions across banking, payments, and remittances in milliseconds.
• Agentic AI: Detects known and unknown typologies while minimising false positives.
• Federated Intelligence: Draws on real-world fraud scenarios contributed by compliance experts in the AFC Ecosystem.
• FinMate AI Copilot: Provides investigators with instant case summaries and recommended actions.
• Cross-Channel Coverage: Banking, e-wallets, remittance, crypto, and card transactions all covered in one system.
• Regulator-Ready: Transparent AI with complete audit trails to satisfy AUSTRAC.

FinCense doesn’t just screen for fraud — it prevents it in real time, helping Australian institutions build both resilience and trust.

Future Trends in Fraud Screening Tools

• Deepfake & Voice Scam Detection: Identifying manipulated audio and video scams.
• Collaboration Networks: Shared fraud databases across institutions to stop scams mid-flight.
• Agentic AI Assistants: Handling end-to-end fraud investigations with minimal human intervention.
• Cross-Border Intelligence: Coordinated screening across ASEAN corridors, where many scams originate.

Conclusion: Smarter Screening, Stronger Defences

Fraud in Australia is becoming faster, more complex, and more costly. But with the right fraud screening tools, institutions can screen smarter, stop scams in real time, and stay on the right side of AUSTRAC.

Pro tip: Don’t settle for tools that only check boxes. The best fraud screening tools combine real-time detection, adaptive AI, and seamless compliance integration — turning fraud prevention into a competitive advantage.

When transactions move in real-time, monitoring them can’t be manual;  it has to be automated.

Malaysia’s Digital Finance Boom Comes with New Risks

Malaysia is in the middle of a financial revolution. Digital wallets, instant payments, QR-based transfers, and cross-border remittances are no longer novelties — they are everyday realities for millions of Malaysians. Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has been actively pushing the industry towards modernisation while tightening compliance around anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF).

But as the payments ecosystem accelerates, so does the pace of financial crime. Fraudsters and money launderers are exploiting the very systems designed to improve convenience. From cross-border mule accounts to deepfake-powered scams, Malaysia’s financial institutions are dealing with a wave of threats that move in real time.

This is why automated transaction monitoring is no longer optional — it is the backbone of modern compliance.

The Current Landscape in Malaysia

Malaysia’s regulatory and risk environment underscores the urgency:

• Bank Negara Malaysia’s vigilance — BNM expects banks and fintechs to implement robust monitoring systems, aligned with FATF standards.
• Rising financial crime losses — scams, fraud, and laundering cases have surged, with cross-border syndicates targeting both banks and digital wallets.
• FATF pressures — Malaysia, like many ASEAN nations, faces scrutiny to demonstrate strong AML/CFT controls.

Despite these developments, many institutions still rely on legacy or semi-automated systems. These tools can’t cope with today’s realities of high-volume, high-speed transactions — leaving dangerous gaps in detection.

What Is Automated Transaction Monitoring?

At its core, automated transaction monitoring is a compliance system that uses technology — often AI and machine learning — to monitor financial transactions in real time.

Instead of static rules or manual checks, automated systems:

• Flag unusual activity instantly
• Analyse multiple data points (customer profile, device, geography, frequency, transaction type)
• Apply risk scoring dynamically
• Continuously learn and adapt from new patterns

In a country like Malaysia, where millions of transactions are processed daily across banks, e-wallets, and fintech apps, this automation is the difference between spotting a mule account early or missing it entirely.

Key Features of Automated Transaction Monitoring

An effective automated transaction monitoring system goes beyond alerting. The best solutions typically include:

1. Real-Time Detection

Transactions are monitored as they happen, allowing suspicious behaviour to be flagged before funds can disappear.

2. AI and Machine Learning

Instead of relying solely on fixed rules, AI models identify emerging typologies — for example, new scams targeting retirees or synthetic identity fraud.

3. Risk-Based Scoring

Each transaction is assessed against multiple risk factors. This allows compliance teams to prioritise high-risk cases instead of drowning in false positives.

4. Adaptive Thresholds

Automated systems adjust thresholds based on behaviour and trends, reducing reliance on static limits.

5. Explainability and Auditability

Modern automated systems provide full transparency into why a transaction was flagged, ensuring regulators can trace every decision.

The Limitations of Traditional Monitoring

Why can’t legacy systems keep up? The answer lies in their design. Traditional monitoring solutions are:

• Rule-Based Only — they cannot detect new laundering patterns until rules are manually updated.
• False-Positive Heavy — Compliance teams waste time reviewing thousands of unnecessary alerts.
• Slow — with manual investigations and delays, criminals can layer and withdraw funds before action is taken.
• Fragmented — many banks run separate systems for fraud and AML, creating blind spots across channels.

In short, legacy systems are outmatched by the speed and creativity of today’s financial criminals.

Why Malaysia Needs Automated Transaction Monitoring Now

Several trends make automation urgent in Malaysia:

1. Instant Payments and QR Adoption

Malaysia is leading in QR payment adoption under DuitNow QR. But instant transfers also mean funds can vanish in seconds. Manual checks simply can’t keep up.

2. Mule Account Proliferation

Young adults and low-income individuals are being recruited as money mules. Automated monitoring can spot hub-and-spoke patterns of inflows and outflows, even across institutions.

3. Cross-Border Laundering Risks

Malaysia’s central position in ASEAN makes it attractive for syndicates layering funds through remittances and fintech platforms.

4. Regulatory Scrutiny

BNM expects institutions to demonstrate not just compliance but proactive risk management. Automated monitoring directly supports this.

5. Rising Compliance Costs

Manual investigation and outdated systems increase compliance overheads. Automation offers efficiency without compromising accuracy.

Tookitaki’s FinCense: Automated Monitoring Reimagined

This is where Tookitaki’s FinCense steps in — not as another monitoring tool, but as Malaysia’s Trust Layer to fight financial crime.

Here’s how FinCense sets the benchmark for automated transaction monitoring:

1. Agentic AI Workflows

FinCense uses Agentic AI — intelligent agents that don’t just detect but also triage, narrate, and recommend actions. This means:

• Alerts are prioritised automatically
• Investigations come with auto-generated narratives regulators can understand
• Compliance teams save hours per case

2. Federated Learning: Shared Intelligence, Locally Applied

Through the AFC Ecosystem, FinCense ingests insights from hundreds of institutions across APAC while keeping data private. For Malaysia, this means early detection of scams or laundering patterns first seen in neighbouring markets.

3. End-to-End Coverage

Instead of separate systems, FinCense integrates:

• AML transaction monitoring
• Fraud prevention
• Screening
• Smart disposition tools

This single view of risk eliminates blind spots and reduces costs.

4. Explainability and Governance

FinCense is built with explainable AI, ensuring every flagged transaction is fully auditable and regulator-friendly — critical under BNM’s watch.

5. Proven ASEAN Fit

FinCense’s scenarios are tailored to ASEAN realities — high-volume remittances, e-wallet fraud, QR payments — making it highly relevant to Malaysian institutions.

A Scenario in Action

Consider this example:

• A mule account in Malaysia begins receiving small but rapid inflows from multiple e-wallets.
• Within hours, funds are layered through QR-based merchants and remitted abroad.
• A traditional rules-based system might not detect this until after funds are gone.

With FinCense’s automated monitoring:

• Real-time detection identifies the unusual inflows.
• Federated learning recognises the pattern from similar cases in Singapore.
• Agentic AI prioritises the alert, generates a narrative, and recommends freezing the account.

The result: risk is stopped in its tracks, customers are protected, and compliance officers have clear documentation for regulators.

The Business Impact for Malaysian Banks and Fintechs

Implementing automated transaction monitoring isn’t just about ticking regulatory boxes. It delivers strategic advantages:

• Faster Detection = Safer Customers — protecting consumers from scams builds long-term trust.
• Lower Compliance Costs — automation reduces manual workloads and investigation costs.
• Better Regulator Relationships — explainable AI ensures smooth audits and inspections.
• Competitive Edge — institutions with advanced compliance are more attractive to global partners and investors.

In Malaysia’s increasingly competitive financial services sector, trust is not just a regulatory requirement — it is a business differentiator.

The Road Ahead: Building Malaysia’s Trust Layer

As Malaysia continues to embrace real-time payments, open banking, and digital finance, the risks will only intensify. Manual or outdated monitoring systems simply cannot keep pace.

Automated transaction monitoring is the future — and with solutions like Tookitaki’s FinCense, financial institutions can stay ahead of criminals while reducing costs and strengthening compliance.

For Malaysia’s banks and fintechs, the choice is no longer about whether to automate — but how fast they can adopt an industry-leading trust layer that evolves as quickly as financial crime does.

Fraud losses in Australia are soaring — but the right financial fraud solutions can turn the tide.

Fraud is no longer a side concern for Australian financial institutions; it’s a top-line risk. Scamwatch reports that Australians lost over AUD 3 billion in 2024, a figure that continues to rise with the expansion of digital banking, instant payments, and cross-border remittances. Criminals are innovating at breakneck speed, exploiting real-time rails and consumer vulnerabilities. The good news? Modern financial fraud solutions are evolving just as quickly, offering banks, fintechs, and remittance providers smarter ways to fight back.

This blog explores the state of financial fraud in Australia, the most effective solutions available today, and how financial institutions can leverage advanced tools to balance compliance, customer experience, and operational efficiency.

The Fraud Landscape in Australia

1. The Surge in Real-Time Payment Fraud

The New Payments Platform (NPP) has transformed how Australians transact. But its speed also makes it attractive to fraudsters, who can move stolen funds across accounts in seconds — often before detection systems can react.

2. Rise of Social Engineering Scams

Romance scams, investment schemes, and impersonation fraud are thriving. In many cases, victims are tricked into authorising transactions themselves — leaving banks and regulators scrambling to decide who bears responsibility.

3. Cross-Border Laundering

Australia’s geographic and financial ties to Southeast Asia create vulnerabilities in remittance corridors. Fraudsters exploit e-wallets, crypto exchanges, and shell companies to obscure fund flows.

4. Regulatory Expectations

AUSTRAC and ASIC expect proactive fraud controls. Institutions must demonstrate that their solutions are effective, not just present. Failures can lead to penalties in the hundreds of millions, as seen in recent enforcement cases.

What Are Financial Fraud Solutions?

Financial fraud solutions are technologies and processes designed to prevent, detect, and respond to fraudulent activities across banking and payments ecosystems.

They typically include:

• Transaction monitoring systems (real-time analysis of payment flows)
• Identity verification tools (KYC, biometrics, device fingerprinting)
• Case management platforms (workflow automation for investigations)
• AI-powered detection engines (machine learning models that spot anomalies)
• Reporting modules (for AUSTRAC and other regulators)

The best solutions work end-to-end, covering fraud across multiple channels while keeping regulators, customers, and internal teams aligned.

Key Features of Modern Financial Fraud Solutions

1. Real-Time Monitoring

Monitoring transactions as they happen — not after — is critical in an NPP world. Effective systems score and block suspicious transactions in milliseconds.

2. AI & Machine Learning

Criminals don’t stand still, and neither should your systems. AI-driven models adapt to new fraud typologies, reducing false positives while increasing accuracy.

3. Behavioural Analytics

Beyond static rules, advanced systems study user behaviour — from login habits to spending patterns — to detect unusual activity.

4. Multi-Channel Protection

Covers banking transfers, card payments, remittance corridors, crypto exchanges, and e-wallet activity.

5. Identity Verification

Integration with onboarding systems ensures fraudsters using synthetic or stolen identities are caught early.

6. Case Management & Automation

Centralised dashboards let investigators resolve cases faster, while automation handles repetitive tasks like sanctions re-checks or reporting.

7. Regulatory Alignment

Solutions must align with AUSTRAC and FATF recommendations, producing SMRs, audit trails, and explainable alerts.

Common Types of Fraud in Australia and How Solutions Respond

Account Takeover (ATO)

• How it happens: Phishing, malware, or social engineering gives criminals access to accounts.
• Solution response: Device fingerprinting, anomaly detection, and velocity monitoring.

Mule Account Networks

• How it happens: Criminals recruit individuals to move illicit funds through legitimate accounts.
• Solution response: Network analysis and entity resolution linking suspicious accounts.

Investment Scams

• How it happens: Victims are persuaded to transfer money to fraudulent schemes.
• Solution response: Real-time monitoring of unusual transfer chains and new beneficiary accounts.

Card-Not-Present Fraud

• How it happens: Stolen card details used in online transactions.
• Solution response: Behavioural biometrics, anomaly scoring, and fraud scoring models.

Crypto Laundering

• How it happens: Converting illicit fiat into crypto and back.
• Solution response: Wallet screening, blockchain analytics, and integration with crypto KYC.

Red Flags Financial Fraud Solutions Should Detect

• Sudden surge in transactions in dormant accounts
• Login from a new location/device followed by transfers
• Rapid small-value transfers (structuring/smurfing)
• Unusual hours of activity (e.g., high-value midnight transfers)
• Beneficiary details mismatched with customer history
• Transfers routed through high-risk jurisdictions

Evaluating Financial Fraud Solutions in Australia

When selecting a solution, institutions should ask:

1. Does it provide real-time detection across all payment rails?
2. Is it powered by AI and ML for adaptive intelligence?
3. Can it reduce false positives while catching complex fraud?
4. Does it integrate with existing AML systems?
5. Is it regulator-approved with explainable alerts and audit trails?
6. Does the vendor have local Australian expertise?

The Cost Dimension: Balancing Compliance and Efficiency

The cost of fraud prevention isn’t just about software licences — it’s also about operational workload. With false positives accounting for up to 90% of alerts in legacy systems, many Australian institutions overspend on investigations. The right fraud solution should cut costs while boosting accuracy.

Spotlight: Tookitaki’s FinCense

Among leading financial fraud solutions, FinCense by Tookitaki is redefining fraud prevention in Australia.

• Real-Time Monitoring: Detects fraud in milliseconds across NPP and cross-border corridors.
• Agentic AI: Learns from new fraud typologies with minimal false positives.
• Federated Intelligence: Shares insights from the AFC Ecosystem — a global network of AML and fraud experts.
• FinMate AI Copilot: Summarises cases, recommends actions, and generates regulator-ready narratives.
• End-to-End Coverage: From onboarding to investigation, fraud and AML are unified in one platform.
• Full AUSTRAC Compliance: SMR/TTR reporting, audit trails, and explainability baked in.

FinCense doesn’t just detect fraud — it helps compliance teams resolve it faster, cheaper, and with greater confidence.

Future Trends in Financial Fraud Solutions

• Deepfake Detection: Tools to identify manipulated audio and video scams.
• Real-Time Collaboration: Shared fraud databases across institutions to stop scams mid-flight.
• Agentic AI Assistants: Automating investigation tasks end-to-end.
• Cross-Border Intelligence: Stronger coordination with ASEAN regulators to secure remittance corridors.

Conclusion: The Smarter Path to Fraud-Free Finance

The fight against fraud in Australia is intensifying, but so are the solutions. The best financial fraud solutions are intelligent, adaptive, and regulator-aligned — empowering compliance teams to keep pace with both scammers and AUSTRAC.

Pro tip: Choose fraud solutions not just for today’s scams, but for tomorrow’s unknowns. Future-proofing your defences is the only way to stay ahead.