Banco Santander, BBVA and CaixaBank team up to tackle fraud with FrauDfense
A problem shared is a problem halved, which is why three Spanish banking giants have now come together to fight one of the industry’s biggest challenges: financial fraud.
The three banks have come together to create FrauDfense
Spanish banks Banco Santander, BBVA and CaixaBank have announced a new alliance in an attempt to mitigate and prevent the impact of fraud.
The trio have created FrauDfense, a new joint venture that will enable the exchange of all relevant and useful sources between the three banks to form one joint response to the issue.
The alliance will initially work to develop a new tool that will allow the banks to more effectively share information on fraudulent practices in a private and secure setting.
The consolidation of this information will then lead the direction of the banks’ unified response to fighting fraud and financial crime.
The initiative will concern all types of fraud, including but not limited to new account fraud being powered by stolen identities, online fraud and card payment fraud.
Leadership and future direction
Banco Santander has put forward its former director of fraud prevention, Carlos Requena, to lead FrauDfense as its new CEO.
In addition to this, FrauDfense’s board of directors is to include two representatives from each founding bank.
From Santander, this includes Carles Solé Pascual, chief information security officer (CISO) of Santander España, and Daniel Barriuso, group chief transformation officer of Banco Santander.
BBVA’s contribution includes its global head of financial crime prevention, Natalia Ortega, and its group chief security officer, Sergio Fidalgo.
Ortega is to serve as the board’s first chair, with the position to be rotated every two years between the three member banks.
Likewise, CaixaBank’s director of governance and fraud control, Sofia Karapatsiou, and its CISO, Lorenzo Malo, will also join the board.
Although making an initial debut in Spain, the trio affirm that FrauDfense is “far from a closed book”. It is therefore expected that more banks and companies from other industries will be able to join the initiative in the future.
