CA to push automated fraud detection

Looking to help financial companies eliminate money-laundering and fraud, Computer Associates is rolling out a new addition to its line of management applications.

The Islandia, N.Y., software company Tuesday announced CleverPath for Global Compliance, which is targeted at customers in the finance, banking and insurance industries. The package is an integration of several existing products designed to offer a greater degree of automation, including the CleverPath Aion business rules engine and predictive analysis and portal applications, said Tina Wang, a vice president and product manager for CleverPath.

The global compliance application will require customization to match the specific needs of any given industry.

The software works by automating manual processes required by regulatory agencies and by helping companies handle frequently changing reporting regulations, according to CA. The application can drill into a company’s transactions and automatically detect fraud or other illegal activities based on built-in business rules and predictive analysis. Suspected fraud cases are identified and passed on to the appropriate personnel for action — potentially helping companies avoid paying fines.

The software can also be used for cross-selling and up-selling, said CA.

For the service component, CA has partnered with integrator BearingPoint Inc. in McLean, Va. Customers will have a customizable portal interface that will present relevant data and business-intelligence tools to ensure regulatory compliance at companies that might not have the manpower to do so manually. The application can also be extended to support similar business processes in sales, marketing and customer service.

The customization services will clearly be necessary to make the new offering work, said Joshua Greenbaum, an analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting in Daly City, Calif. Fraud detection is a very broad field, and what may constitute fraud in one industry could be a standard business practice in another, he said. Nevertheless, companies that are legally required to comply with legislation such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may lack the internal processes to do so. That act criminalizes the destruction of documents that might be needed for federal investigations.

CleverPath for Global Compliance will run on the Windows, Unix, Linux and z/OS platforms and is available now. Pricing will vary.