ACI Bundles Fraud Services Under a Real-Time Payments Cloud Brand

As real-time payments gain more traction in the United States, ACI Worldwide Inc. is making fraud-protection services that cater to these methods available under the Real-Time Payments Cloud moniker.

Announced Tuesday and working with Microsoft Corp.’s cloud service Azure, ACI’s Real-Time Payments Cloud supports the Real Time Payments network from The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC and the upcoming FedNow service that the Federal Reserve has scheduled for a July debut. As the U.S. banking industry prepares for the new service and existing real-time payments services adapt, the need for real-time fraud decisions gains even more importance, ACI says.

The ACI service, already in use in 24 real-time payments programs around the globe, provides a score that instantly assesses the legitimacy of a potential real-time payment. ACI says it processes more than 500 million instant payments monthly.

“The reality is real-time payments need protection,” says Marc Trepanier, ACI principal fraud consultant. Real-time payments becomes another channel that needs protection, he says. “The reality is the protection technology is there.”

Having a real-time payment protection plan is critical, especially as FedNow use becomes more common later this year. “The fraudsters, organized crime, is well enough established in payments, [and] they have the tools and they are ready for real-time payments,” Trepanier says. “They know how to do it on Cash App. They know how to do it on Zelle,” referring to two primarily peer-to-peer payment services with faster-payments capabilities. “They are very good at finding the weakest point of resistance.” Financial institutions will need to apply their tools, or adopt new tools, for the real-time payments services, he says.

That may be especially important because Trepanier says there is a tectonic shift happening in payments fraud, especially as scams increase in frequency. While typical anti-fraud measures focus on stopping a payment from leaving a financial institution, criminals are becoming more interested in using mule accounts, where unwitting consumers enable their accounts to be conduits for criminal activity. As consumers fall victim to scams, criminals now use credit transactions to move money, causing fraud teams to add incoming credits as well as debits to their routines, Trepanier says. Or the credits could be used for card testing, to validate stolen credentials.