The Record - Issue 20: Spring 2021

88 www. t e c h n o l o g y r e c o r d . c om technologies (PETs), which will see the sharing of Know Your Customer (KYC) insights and transaction validity between financial institu- tions in a market,” he explains. Sharing data in this way would allow institu- tions to better detect fraud, offer customers more personalised advice, and proactively identify the accumulation of systemic risks. While these ben- efits have traditionally been at odds with institu- tions’ obligations to keep their customers’ data private and their own information confidential, PETs have the potential to alter these dynam- ics, allowing for the analysis and the sharing of insights, but without requiring the sharing of the underlying data itself. “PETs have the potential to fundamentally rede- fine the dynamics of data-sharing by eliminating – or greatly reducing – the risks historically asso- ciated with collaboration,” explain the authors of a World Economic Forum paper that champions the use of PETs. “As these technologies mature, they will demand a re-examination of mothballed data-sharing projects and the exploration of pre- viously unimaginable opportunities.” Microsoft is already leading the way in the area of applied PETs. “We were one of the first to market with trusted execution environments using our Azure Confidential Compute service,” Nicolay says. “This technology isolates and pro- tects data in use to keep it from being accessed by a third party. Meanwhile, we have launched a number of free and open-source homomorphic encryption libraries that allow computations to be performed directly on encrypted data. Partners are already leveraging these to build cross-jurisdiction KYC solutions.” In addition to all this, Microsoft Research has launched the easy secure multi-party computa- tion (EzPC) project that supports making secure multi-party computation easier to implement and has also taken part in regulator tech sprints focused on secure data sharing organised by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority. “PETs have the potential to really transform the financial services industry – and Microsoft is playing a significant role in enabling the technol- ogy,” Nicolay concludes. “I’m really excited about what this means for the future. I strongly believe that everything that has happened over the last 12 months has acted as a catalyst for modernisation and investment in financial crime solutions. As a result, we will be able to continue the fight against financial crime in a much more effective way.” F E ATUR E We asked a selection of key Microsoft partners about the solutions that are enabling financial services organisations to combat the seemingly inexorable growth in digitally enabled crime Partner perspectives Ayelet Biger-Levin Vice President of Market Strategy at BioCatch “Behavioural biometrics help financial institutions close the blind spots for many common fraud detection tools that rely on device, location or network attributes. These controls are necessary for making authentication decisions to allow access to an account, but cybercriminals have learned how to spoof these attributes using malware or remote access tools, which make a session appear as though it is the legitimate user. Behavioural biometrics provide deep insights into digital behaviour based on how a user interacts with their device to find common patterns associated with cybercrime and fraud. For example, a disruption in hand- eye coordination may suggest a session is being conducted by malware with remote access capabilities and can be immediately observed by scrolling patterns. Another example is the time it takes a user to perform simple intuitive actions, such as clicking on the submit button, indicating they may be operating under duress as part of a social engineering scam.”