Johannesburg, 16 Mar 2012
Mint Management Technologies (Mint) has deployed a state-of-the-art solution that Sabric has come to depend on as it carries out its mandate to reduce bank-related crime in South Africa.
The alarming rise in the incidence of identity theft and cyber crime around the world has certainly been felt locally, where white collar crime is estimated to cost the South African economy billions of rands each year.
When it comes to combating this brand of criminal, forewarned is forearmed. With access to the right information at the right time, banks are able to circumvent certain crimes through the identification of high-risk areas or activities and responding to these threats.
Alternatively, by proactively tracking trends and patterns, preventative measures can be deployed. It was for this purpose that Sabric (South African Banking Risk Information Centre) was founded. Sabric is a non-profit organisation funded through an affiliation of local banks and cash-in-transit (CiT) companies all committed to creating a safer banking environment for South Africans.
“Each financial institution keeps its own crime risk information and Sabric provides the platform needed for these institutions to share this activity with each other without compromising client confidentiality. From this raw data, Sabric is able to generate actionable and timeous reports that enable local banks and CiTs to identify patterns, areas of vulnerability and even potential targets,” explains Kalyani Pillay, CEO of Sabric.
The premise is simple, but in execution, it is far more complex. “Each bank has its own methodology for capturing data, and each institution applies its own sort of enterprise 'shorthand' within data fields. Creating a single, unified view of fraud information is a huge challenge, yet extremely critical,” explains Mint Management Technologies managing director, David Woolnough.
Sabric processes more than 1.1 million records every month. Each of these records has on average 50 individual fields. That is a lot of room for error in a space that can ill afford inaccuracies. This is what makes Sabric's custom-designed Repository Gazetteer just so impressive.
Working together with Microsoft Gold Partners Mint, Sabric has constructed an interactive repository designed to house the glut of information relating to fraudulent activity in South Africa. From here, data can be mined, extracted and manipulated to provide operational and strategic support to the local banking industry in its fight against crime. Sabric has leveraged Mint's significant expertise in Microsoft CRM and SQL to ensure that exactly the right information is made available quickly and accurately.
The solution, named 'Cassandra', has been developed specifically for Sabric. “We (Mint) extracted lessons learnt from Sabric's ageing legacy system and used these to engineer an entirely new solution using Microsoft-based building blocks such as SQL, Silverlight and .NET technology. Cassandra is extremely robust and easily scalable, providing Sabric with both the firm foundation and agility needed to be responsive,” says Woolnough.
The system's built-in intelligence means Sabric now has a system that offers a number of intuitive tools that effectively collate, sanitise and verify the hundreds of thousands of records received on a daily basis. Data is captured quickly and can accurately be analysed and repackaged into actionable reports within just hours.
“This is critical in a space where cyber criminals tend to act extremely quickly, often striking several times in quick succession before changing tactics or location to avoid detection. The elimination of duplicates also prevents false patterns or trends emerging, which, if pursued, can be a drain on precious resources,” says Woolnough. “Plus, by introducing an element of measurability, banks and CiTs are also in a position to assess how effective interventions have been and adjust accordingly.”
“Together with our clients and public private partners, we view crime reduction as a shared responsibility and collective priority,” says Pillay. “This repository has become an important tool in our arsenal and one that we hope to build upon to drive down the incidence of bank-related crime in our country.”
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