The Problem: A decade-long investment in legacy systems leading to substantial fraud losses & operational inefficiencies

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In the last 2-3 years, Directions Credit Union saw a large influx of fraud including P2P, account takeover, ACH, and check. While their investment in a traditional legacy system worked well enough on the AML side, it was rigid and reactive for the fraud team. To compensate for the vendor's shortcomings the fraud team also depended on a homegrown system that they extracted data and batches from to then digest in a Tableau dashboard.

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“While nightly batches will work for AML because your intention is backward-looking, that’s just not sufficient when you are looking at P2P or account takeover fraud. Because of this, we were also reliant on a homegrown system that was unscalable and manual,” recalled Jonathan Pollock, Chief Risk Officer of Directions Credit Union.

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TLDR: The Problem

Increased A2A, P2P, ATOs, and check fraud over the last 2-3 years
Growth in fraud loss (excluding card fraud) amounting to $250,000–$300,000 IN X TIMEFRAME
Legacy vendor lacked real-time fraud alerting, due to once-per-day, nightly batches
Unscalable homegrown system also dependent on data extractions and batch uploads to Tableau

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Direction’s existing system was not effective in detecting and preventing fraud in real time, leading to substantial fraud losses and operational inefficiencies.

“The customization and adaptability of the platform were key factors leading us to choose Unit21. We can create and modify fraud rules on the fly, helping adapt quicker to fraud trends.”

Jonathan Pollock

Chief Risk Officer

Why Unit21: Stellar customer support that empowers the team to find and act on new fraud patterns

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After a decade of rigidity and inflexibility, Directions Credit Union knew it was time to make an upgrade. Jon evaluated five vendors with the goal of a single comprehensive platform for both BSA/AML and fraud.

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“We needed a platform that was near real-time, customizable, and adaptable to the changing landscape of risk and compliance. Many of these vendors were for lack of a better word–a black box. You got what you got. With Unit21, I liked that I could create my own rules based on a new fraud pattern.“

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Jon and his team found implementation easy and seamless. “The only hard part of the implementation was on us–finding all our data sources and giving that data to Unit21. The actual implementation was a breeze. It’s a fairly intuitive platform and a 2-day training with our fraud team was sufficient to get them up and running.”

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TLDR: Why Unit21

A single platform for AML and fraud
Seamless and easy implementation with great customer support
Intuitive platform–a 2-day training fully enabling the fraud team

“I’m very excited for what the future holds for us with the integration of Corelation and the near real-time capability coming soon. Going from nightly batches to every 15 minutes is challenging the way we not just detect fraud, but prevent it.”

Jonathan Pollock

Chief Risk Officer

The Results: From black box to self-sufficient rule building, customization, and adaptability

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With Unit21, Directions has been able to look at countless fraud patterns that were never possible in their previous system. “For example, I can write a rule around password patterns–there are X amount of password resets plus outgoing transfers. I can marry those two data points together, flag that’s abnormal, and it becomes a new meaningful alert for the team to review.”

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“Getting a new system working takes tweaking and iterating of course, and the Unit21 team’s ability to jump in with a quick response and solution has been great. The customer support is hand and foot above our old vendor.”

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TLDR: The Results

Improved detection of complex fraud patterns with rapid rule implementation and customization
Easy implementation with knowledge support for quick rule adaptation and testing.
Improved response time for detecting and acting on fraudulent activity
Streamlined data integration for efficient monitoring and alerting
Near real-time monitoring set to make a big impact on fraud prevention

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Moving From 24 Hour Data Batching to Creating, Testing, & Deploying Rules within 24 Hours

“I have true control of our fraud strategy and systems. Unit21’s customizability allows me to create and test a rule one day and deploy it the very next day!”

- Jonathan Pollock, Chief Risk Officer