If you’ve done bank transactions likelihood you’ve heard about SWIFT. SWIFT is the widely used interbank messaging system and is used to transfer trillions of dollars between banks every day.

The Belgium based SWIFT will launch a new tool to spot fraudulent messages, offering banks a service that will be able to learn a user bank’s messaging patterns so that it can spot if a payment is being made to an unusual counterparty or for an unusual amount.

Last year $81 million was stolen from Bangladesh’s central bank after SWIFT system was hacked, sending instructions to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pay money from Bangladesh Bank’s account to parties in Asia. SWIFT was criticised by users and industry players for lax security on its system even as the risk of cyber attacks increased, especially when the network expanded to include smaller institutions with less robust security procedures.

SWIFT launched a range of new security measures and services in September. The latest product is due to be introduced early next year and will “red-flag”, or put on hold, payment instructions that exceed limits set by clients or are deemed anomalous by the system’s learning software.

Luc Meurant, SWIFT’s head of financial crime compliance services, told Reuters that the service would be targeted initially at institutions and central banks with small messaging volumes because they might not be able to afford to develop such detection tools themselves.
He said the service could cost small users as little as 10,000 euros a year, though prices have yet to be finalised.