July 2022 Summaries

Synthetic identity fraud, in which criminals combine fabricated or stolen personal information to create accounts and obtain credit, has expanded with digital financial services and is increasingly linked to deposit-account scams, money mule activity, money laundering, and other illicit schemes. Aite-Novarica’s report identifies synthetic-identity application fraud as a leading concern among surveyed North American financial-services and fintech executives, tied with account-takeover wire fraud at 39%, while noting growing attacks on small-business, checking, and savings accounts in addition to traditional lending and credit products. The report highlights a layered detection approach using signals such as personal-information usage patterns, Social Security verification, device, email, and phone reputation, behavioral analytics, consortium data, and stepped-up identity checks. Among 11 evaluated providers, Aite-Novarica named Socure as having the most comprehensive offering, citing its use of device data, machine learning, graph and link analysis, and consortium feedback. Socure describes its Sigma Synthetic Fraud and ID+ platform as combining broad identity data, real-time predictive models, and network intelligence to identify suspicious velocity, linkages, and changing fraud patterns while reducing false positives.