Tech Talk: Fighting fraud with AI, virtual banking, digital ID developments, and more!

• Facebook wants regulatory friends
• Fighting fraud with AI
• Banking on Generation Z
• Digital ID developments
• Bank bolsters digital IDs
• Mastercard expanding its reach
• Innovative virtual accounts
• WeLab virtual banking
• Tips for an open banking strategy
• Spam, Scams & Breaches
• Updates, Patches & Alerts
• and on the lighter side...

Facebook wants regulatory friends
Earlier this month, the House Financial Services Committee called for a cease and desist on Facebook's plans to launch its digital currency projects Libra and Calibra. In response to policymakers' questions and concerns about its crypto ventures, the head of the social media giant's digital wallet Calibra, David Marcus, told the Senate Banking Committee that the company acknowledges they can't do this alone, and that they not only welcome but need governments, central banks and regulators' help to properly launch their cryptocurrency products, reports CNBC.

Fighting fraud with AI
The exponential growth of digital banking and ecommerce has spurred a rise in new and emerging digital fraud schemes. Brighterion, a Mastercard company, and global payments provider Elavon (a subsidiary of U.S. Bank) have teamed up to fight fraud with artificial intelligence (AI). Integrating Brighterion's advanced AI platform into Elavon's payments network will enable the firm to detect and identify transaction anomalies faster and more efficiently to minimize fraud and manage risk, reports Globe Newswire.

Banking on Generation Z
With an eye toward the future, challenger banks are setting their sights on Generation Z customers – those born in the mid-1990s and later who are still in high school and college. By offering banking products that appeal to this age group, such as platforms that enable parents to send digital allowance payments to their children and offer financial activity social media feeds, the objective is to acquire these customers early on, earn their loyalty, and foster a long-term relationship. Bank Innovation has the details.

Digital ID developments
Today's tech-savvy consumers rely more and more on digital channels to access financial services, and they expect to do so seamlessly and securely. This demand is driving the digital identity revolution as traditional ways of verifying customers' identities are no longer secure or convenient. Enhancing the customer experience while mitigating risks and complying with increasingly stringent regulatory mandates to protect consumer data has propelled digital identity providers to improve the identity verification experience. PYMNTS.com has the details.

Bank bolsters digital IDs
Lloyds Banking Group (which includes Halifax, Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows, and has 15 million online customers) is bolstering its digital identification process to protect its customers from emerging fraud risks. Lloyds has partnered with cyber security startup Callsign to enhance digital identification and authentication of online payments with multiple real-time data points to authenticate users and multi-factor authentication to approve transactions. Verdict has the details.

Mastercard expanding its reach
Global payments company Mastercard is teaming up with fintech players to expand its multinational reach in the payments market. Mastercard has acquired Transfast, a global payments company with significant cross-border network reach, to increase Mastercard's strength in payments and improve transparency and certainty in cross-border transactions, reports Banking Technology. To help companies increase financial efficiencies across global supply chains, Mastercard has partnered with enterprise information management provider OpenText to increase the speed, compliance and security for business information, payments and financing in supply chain. The partnership will also provide OpenText Business Network customers with financing through the Mastercard Track™ B2B global trade enablement platform. Finextra has the details.

Innovative virtual accounts
To help business clients more effectively manage cash across multiple accounts and reduce the need for complex cash sweeps, British multinational bank HSBC has launched next generation virtual accounts for treasury clients. The multicurrency solution (available in more than 20 currencies) enables clients to consolidate hundreds of bank accounts, centralize payments and receivables across multiple and single entity structures, and receive near-real-time reporting on transactions, reports Banking Technology.

WeLab virtual banking
In April, Asia's leading fintech firm WeLab was the first Hong Kong fintech company to be granted a virtual banking license by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. Founded on a core philosophy of the "3I" – Instant, Interactive and Intelligent – the new virtual bank will use artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning to provide seamless digital financial services for its Hong Kong customers. WebProNews has the details.

Tips for an open banking strategy
Amazon, one of the Big Four technology companies and one the world's largest ecommerce marketplaces, derives most of its sales from third-party sellers who offer their products on Amazon.com. If you ask an Amazon customer where they purchased a product, their response is most often "from Amazon," not the name of the third-party merchant who actually sold the product through Amazon. Open banking provides financial institutions with the ability to offer a "marketplace" of financial products and services for their customers under the bank's own brand. Forbes has the details and tips to consider when adopting an open banking strategy.

Spams, Scams and Breaches

• Security Week: Crytomining malware targets Linux servers
• Finextra: Wells Fargo Irish subsidiary hit with record fine for IT failures
• Help Net Security: Steps financial institutions can take to improve email security
• Forbes: Notorious credential-stealing Astaroth malware targeting Windows users

Updates, Patches and Alerts...

• US-CERT: Current Activity
• Sophos: Firefox to include tracker blocking report feature
• Threatpost: WordPress plugin WP Statistics patches XSS flaw
• Krebs on Security: Patch Tuesday lowdown, July 2019 edition
• Threatpost: Zoom pushes emergency patch for webcam hijack flaw

See what other current hot cyber and technology topics affecting financial institutions BOL users are discussing in the Technology Forum.

And on the lighter side...

In 2016, a short-lived phenomenon swept the nation known as the "Mannequin Challenge," where groups of people would stand still in elaborate poses while someone moved around and filmed them. A team of Google researchers have collected these videos for training an AI system that will help computers see 3D scenes as people do.