Mastercard has introduced a new service in the Asia Pacific region called Trace, designed to leverage AI for identifying and preventing money laundering and financial crime.
Trace utilizes extensive payments data from various financial institutions, offering comprehensive insights that go beyond the isolated perspective of individual companies, allowing for the tracking of criminal activity throughout the payments network.
The surge in real-time payments within Asia Pacific has drawn the attention of money launderers and “mules,” individuals attempting to evade scrutiny by quickly transferring funds between multiple accounts.
Until now, financial institutions have primarily depended on semi-manual methods or proprietary AI systems to detect such illicit activities; however, these approaches often rely solely on internal data and lack the broader, network-level view essential for tracking widespread criminal conduct.
Mastercard’s new offering employs advanced data science techniques to identify potentially fraudulent transaction patterns across the network and provides proactive alerts to banks regarding suspicious accounts.
The technology has already been implemented in the UK, where it is utilized by 21 organizations that cover 90% of the Faster Payments Service network.
The Philippines is the first country in the Asia Pacific to adopt Trace, with Mastercard collaborating with the local interbank network BancNet, which has onboarded 36 domestic lenders to date.
Matthew Driver, EVP of Services for Asia Pacific at Mastercard, stated, “By ensuring that transactions remain secure and compliant, Trace helps protect consumers and financial institutions while fostering trust in the digital economy—which will be critical for the region’s economic growth.”