Whitepaper:
Business Email Compromise
(BEC Scam)
A Deep Dive into Client-Side Fraud in Wholesale Banking and How AlertSpeed Changes the Game
Business Email Compromise (BEC) is emerging as one of the most challenging and costly fraud threats in the financial services industry, especially in wholesale banking. BEC schemes exploit weaknesses in client-side processes by impersonating trusted figures - executives, vendors, or business partners, resulting in significant financial losses. This type of fraud is notably distinct from traditional fraud patterns that banking institutions are accustomed to detecting and mitigating.
While both retail and wholesale banking face BEC fraud, wholesale banking presents a more complex and high-stakes challenge due to the higher transaction values, more intricate client relationships, and multi-country payment rails (SWIFT, ACH, RTP, Batch). The inherent complexity of wholesale transactions, combined with the speed of modern payment systems, makes real-time fraud prevention critical.
This whitepaper highlights the core differences between retail and wholesale BEC fraud. It explores client-side wholesale fraud, which poses the greatest risk and is the hardest to detect and prevent. As traditional fraud detection systems often fail to address the sophisticated, socially engineered nature of BEC, a more advanced solution is required.
Introducing AlertSpeed, an AI driven fraud detection platform specifically designed to address the unique challenges posed by BEC in wholesale banking.
