Insights Analytics & Intelligence
Fighting Fraud Effectively with Symcor's COR.IQ Products
“The COR.IQ Alliance is a much stronger way to fight fraud than a traditional independent bank organizational approach. It’s much like a herd of buffalos that stand together to protect themselves against threats from lions.” That’s how Nino Di Teodoro, Senior Director, COR.IQ Products describes Symcor’s COR.IQ Alliance of Canadian financial institutions working together to fight fraud.
Five years ago, Symcor introduced its COR.IQ line of service, enabling a network of financial institutions to share insights and data to proactively generate alerts of potential fraud, including suspicious transactions, identity theft, and unusual payments. At present, COR.IQ is the only solution that effectively utilizes network insights to combat fraud for cheques and EFTs. These payment transaction types currently represent 80% of the total value of money being exchanged in Canada.*
COR.IQ’s capabilities provide benefits to Canadian financial institutions and to their customers. “By reducing losses from fraud, COR.IQ can help financial institutions keep their banking costs low,” Nino explains. “COR.IQ also adds an extra layer of protection to customers’ banking information, supporting improved client experiences while maintaining overall confidence in the payments system.”
A Bird’s Eye View of COR.IQ’s Product Suite
COR.IQ currently features three fraud-fighting solutions:
- Verify
- Instant Verify
- Image Verify
Verify uses advanced analytics to validate personal, commercial and government cheques. The solution scans for duplicates, counterfeits and forgeries in addition to validating deposit accounts. Verify also searches for inconsistencies by comparing new cheques to previous transactions.
Instant Verify detects fraud in real-time by quickly scanning the status and balances of accounts that cheques are coming from. The solution validates cheques and confirms the availability of funds in the issuing account at the time of deposit. Symcor provides this information to clients in real-time to enable a timely decision to hold or release funds.
Image Verify uses document image verification to detect cheque fraud before money is released, resulting in millions of dollars in savings for Canadian financial institutions. Image Verify rapidly scans names on cheques and accounts and compares current cheque characteristics to previous cheques from the same account to flags any discrepancies. Using its robust database of counterfeit templates, Image Verify generates client alerts to review and action cheques suspected as counterfeit. “Image Verify is customized to recognize Canadian cheque features,” explains Nino. “The end result is an enhanced customer experience that helps to increase the level of trust between financial institutions and their customers.”
The Future: Real-Time Payments
The onset of real-time payments technology offers consumers a high level of convenience, according to Nino, but fraudsters are also looking at ways to take advantage.
COR.IQ is piloting a new solution that addresses fraud in real-time electronic payments, such as wires, EFTs and payroll deposits. It is currently being tested on a variety of payment channels to verify payees and accounts in real-time before funds are released. If Symcor flags an item as suspicious, it sends an alert to the client for further action.
Members of the COR.IQ Alliance gain access to a wide-range of fraud-fighting tools and insights, including the ability to participate in these pilot solutions. “Alliance members have the advantage of using networked data to better protect their customers from fraud,” mentions Nino. “Banks don’t need to compete with each other when it comes to fighting fraud; fighting fraud is an opportunity for all of us to work together.”
For over 25 years, Symcor has successfully aligned market participants to solve common industry-wide challenges. Backed by a strong foundation of security and industry-leading data governance controls, COR.IQ helps financial institutions maintain client trust while providing a convenient and frictionless customer experience.
