Share your experience using Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management

I am working on Transaction Monitoring and Fraud Risk, and I have experience using the Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management tool alongside World-Check and Salesforce for this purpose.

During the use of the Fraud Monitoring feature, we have to utilize the features to identify issues, such as the SAR report and counterterrorism financing. We check if there is any counterterrorism financing and implement measures on money laundering, specifically if there is any import-export of money related to terrorism.

I have been working with the Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management solution for monitoring transactions and banking tools. I am using the tool to check the banking transactions and determine if there are any spikes in transactions. Based on that, we have to fill the SAR report and check the transaction report on the tool.

Regarding the Cross-Channel Fraud Monitoring feature, Fraud Monitoring in Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management is related to Transaction Monitoring. Fraud Monitoring checks if there is any fraud in particular accounts, such as business accounts or individual accounts, so it is totally dependent on Transaction Monitoring where both are related.

I find that the most valuable feature in Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management is that we can easily identify customer details without any issues, and it works smoothly. If I am trying to find customer transactions, I can easily find them without any issues, and in the last few years, I have not encountered any errors on the tool.

Identity verification is about customer identification, including all customer details and transactions, and these are the things we use for business purposes to check customer partnerships and needs.

We can definitely improve the Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management tool because I sometimes encounter issues while searching for particular customer transactions; it results in errors and I cannot easily find specific transactions. If there is improvement in those points, we can easily identify customer details and detect spikes in transactions to cover money laundering.

Regarding specific features, I think AI should be implemented in the Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management tool. AI should be integrated for better analysis and suggestions because nowadays, AI is very important for all organizations. If implemented, it can easily identify transaction details, reducing the need for extra manpower.

I have more than four years of experience working with Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management, and currently, I am working in HCL Tech.

Sometimes there are performance issues with Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management, especially when many users are online, as it can lead to downtime.

I would rate Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management a seven out of ten as a product because when user volume is high, the tool can go down.

I have experience with other solutions such as World-Check and Salesforce aside from Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management.

Before using the Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management tool, we put the details of customers such as transactions and then check those details as a basis for filling SAR reports to submit to the AML team.

Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management and World-Check are different since World-Check helps in identifying the regions of customers, such as red flag areas Somalia, while Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management focuses on transaction analysis.

I have rated Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management a seven out of ten.

AI should be integrated into the Nice Actimize Fraud & Authentication Management tool for better analysis and suggestions because nowadays, AI is very important for all organizations. If implemented, it can easily identify transaction details, reducing the need for extra manpower.

Sometimes there are performance issues, especially when many users are online, as it can lead to downtime. When user volume is high, the tool can go down.

I do not have time to discuss other products such as Salesforce or ShareWorks.

We used the tool for the detection of anti-money laundering trade activities. There were four models where each business trade model handled a different aspect. Sufficient activity monitoring is a model that monitors the activity of each bank’s customer. This model tracks activities and sends them to White List Filtering. There is also Customer Due Diligence which is more or less a KYC that takes notes on the details and demography of the customer. We cannot monitor the activities of the customer without Actimize.

As an end user, we used the tool to track fraudulent activities which are part of the official activity monitoring model. There are some thresholds to this model. For instance, if a customer who hasn’t done a deposit over two months comes in with a deposit in a span of 72 hours, then it is considered suspicious activity. The solution flags the customer for inquiries and investigations.

The solution has improved the productivity of financial institutions. The number of fraudulent activities within the banking system has reduced since the system helps them track suspicious activities. After the deployment and installation, another phase of deployment was required to get access to the benefits.

There is a dashboard called Risk Case Management which helps you access trade business models. This dashboard helps with the authentication of the end user. There are about three to four different levels that are not from a particular department or unit. There are a lot of notifications and approvals to be made for a user to have access to the system. It is one of the things that gives credibility to the tool.

The tool helped my clients track some fraudulent activities which couldn’t have been possible without the solution. Once the solution is deployed, the client’s system needs to be upgraded and overhauled to reflect the new system. The end users can see the benefits of it. The integration of the solution increases our customers’ client base since more customers from other banks have decided to join the client bank due to the level of security.

The systems are always open to upgrades and improvements. There are always new updates. I know some other versions that will come up. The one that has been deployed is the fifth of its kind and when we were running the test during the deployment, we encountered some technical issues. When we tried to refer to other countries where the solution was deployed, we realized that we had run the older version there.

This particular version needs an improvement in the Customer Due Diligence model. There are two different modes on which the solution runs which include the batch mode and the real-time mode. Initially, the solution was running in batch mode. The real-time mode got introduced as a result of advancements in mobile technology where customers needed to access the system using their mobile devices. Real-time mode, which is the opposite of batch mode, runs the system in real time. On the other hand, batch mode runs at a specific period where you go and check what the result is.

Real-time mode runs 24/7 and you can see the information updated on the database whenever you check it. It is one of the new features that this particular version came out with.

I was part of the project that implemented the solution and the project lasted for about 18 months. I was an end-user.

The hardware always has issues. When you deploy on the cloud, you may not have the full ability to do the things that you want to do. On the other hand, when you deploy on-prem, you need to get the hardware components.

The solution is quite flexible and scalable. We have done most of the deployments remotely. Therefore, you can do the deployment from anywhere as long as you have access to good cloud and on-prem servers. During our deployment, we reached a stage where we needed scalability. At the initial stage, where our infrastructure was provisioned, the PIN provisioning did not match our requirements. Within two hours, we scaled up to 60 Gigabytes and continued the work.

The tech support was part of our deployment team. We always contacted them whenever we encountered any issues while running the scripts. They resolved the issues immediately by looking at the log files. If they couldn’t resolve the issue in that manner, they would join us on the cloud and try to replicate the issue by running the script again. The tech support team would take it further from there and resolve it.

Positive

The tool is quite complex. The project team consisted of four different teams, one from India, two from South Africa, and my own team from Nigeria. Though I had coordinated the four teams, I had to involve the regional command manager too due to the proprietary nature of the solution since only the solution owners were aware of some of the aspects and models of the tool.

When it gets to the point of the implementation like new code, they run the script. The implementation is complex for new people who are looking to implement it. When I was done with the implementation, I was confident to do more since I understood the nitty-gritty aspects of the implementation process. The complexity of the deployment is relative to the experience or requirements of the client.

I implemented through a vendor team with high level of expertise. Since there are three teams based in different geographical locations, we could efficiently work remotely to have the project completed. 

I am not privy to the cost. The estimate that I provide won’t reflect the actual amount since there are a lot of middlemen and other parties involved. In Nigeria, the phase one deployment would cost 165,000,000 Nigerian Naira which includes CDD, RCM, WNS, etc. This cost is for the implementation alone and I am not sure about the other costs that come with scaling up.

I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. Though there are other anti-money laundering solutions available like the one by Oracle. NICE is a good solution for fraud detection and authentication. This is the reason the tool stands out. Most of the banks in Nigeria and even the ones outside the African continent focus on implementing customized solutions. The Central Bank of Nigeria has added all commercial banks to incorporate anti-money laundering solutions but they were not specific. Many banks consider implementing NICE because of its rugged nature. I would like to advise anyone who is looking to implement NICE to evaluate it. The solution might be expensive but it fits the purpose.