Accelerated Market Adoption of FRAMLx Cross-Institutional Collaboration to Stop Financial Crime

In the past 4 months, membership in FRAMLxchange, Verafin’s Secure 314(b) Collaboration Network, experienced 51% growth.

Financial institutions from coast-to-coast are facing an age-old problem with a new twist — the modern criminal — whose attacks are more organized and larger in scale than ever before. Their ability to commit profit-generating crime and then illegally launder the proceeds is directly related to the inability of the US financial system to keep pace with the changing nature of these crimes. Today’s more sophisticated criminal schemes include the spread of illegal activity across multiple institutions. Each individual financial institution, restricted to seeing only what happens within its own four walls, is incapable of seeing the bigger picture.

Verafin’s innovative FRAMLx technology gives banks and credit unions the power to protect themselves and their customers from even the most sophisticated criminal attacks. FRAMLx empowers investigators at FIs through:

• Cross-institutional data analysis: Verafin’s FRAMLx alerts notify FIs about unusual customer activity spread across multiple institutions.

• Peer collaboration: Collaboration is made possible by FRAMLxchange, which is registered as an association of financial institutions (FIs) with FinCEN for 314(b) information sharing. Member FIs are able to securely collaborate one-to-one with other institutions to voluntarily share information about potentially suspicious activity — all within Verafin.

“It’s an incredibly powerful tool. FRAMLx takes the guesswork out of our investigations,” says Rebecca Robertson, SVP Director of AML Compliance at South State Bank (SC). “When we see an alert, we know right away this is a person we need to look into. We don’t have to waste time digging around, trying to figure out whom to contact for more information. And the information we share gives both our institutions a view of our mutual customer we could never achieve without working together.”

FRAMLxchange membership and in-app collaboration is open to all FinCEN 314(b)-registered FIs, regardless of their current transaction monitoring system, at framlxchange.verafin.com — leading a wide range of institutions to take advantage of an incredible opportunity to improve their investigations into unusual customer activity.

“When asked what keeps me up at night, it’s that I don’t know what I don’t know. With FRAMLx, I can work with another institution to put together what I see with what they see. Right away I understand what is a problem and, just as importantly, what isn’t a problem. Many of our collaborations have given me a level of comfort rather than leaving me with a feeling that something needs to be reported,” says Josh Brown, Director of Security at The Fauquier Bank (VA).

“The overwhelming success we are seeing with the FRAMLxchange network shows how powerful information sharing is in helping institutions stop financial crime. A siloed view of customer activity inhibits an investigator’s ability to see the bigger picture of what criminals are doing. Verafin’s FRAMLx data analysis and cross-institutional collaboration functionality turns the tables on criminals, making it incredibly difficult for them to hide activity,” said Brendan Brothers, Verafin co-founder. “Investigators also make significant efficiency gains as FRAMLx helps them quickly understand what customer activity requires more detailed investigation.”