Cyber start-up Trustmi launches bank account validation tool
Conventional methods for validating vendor payments fall short, it says.
Cyber security start-up Trustmi has launched a bank account validation tool for businesses that it claims can provide “full protection” against vendor payment fraud.
Co-founder and CTO Eli Ben Nun (pictured right), launching Trustmi Certify, said the traditional validation process for vendor payments had fallen short in protecting businesses.
“When it comes to providing full identity verification for vendor bank accounts, existing processes aren’t enough,” Mr Ben Nun said.
Typically, the validation process involved verifying the identity of vendors and confirming a bank account’s validity, he said, but fraudsters often opened bank accounts impersonating legitimate companies.
“We‘ve seen hundreds of cases where fraudsters open legitimate bank accounts that appear to be owned by a real company but are not. These fraudulent bank accounts will still pass all existing bank validation and cost companies millions of dollars.”
CEO and co-founder Shai Gabay (pictured left) said Trustmi Certify worked by using AI to confirm that the vendor was the real account holder and that the bank account used for payments was correct.
This would prevent business payment fraud by authenticating vendors’ identities and verifying the legitimacy of their bank accounts.
“We make the connection between the bank account, the vendor, and the person so that businesses know their payments are going to the right place every time,” he said.
Bank accounts could be connected when vendors were onboarded to Trustmi Certify, which enabled immediate validation and reduced human error that would otherwise come with manually inputting account information down the line.
“The result is an easy and reliable process that delivers immediate bank account validation, reduces manual work, and avoids human error when inputting vendor account information.”
Trustmi Certify would also remove the need for manual validation procedures such as “time-consuming and vulnerable call-back procedures” between businesses and their banking providers.
Mr Gabay and Mr Ben Nun founded the Israeli start-up in 2021, raising $US4 million for its “end-to-end payment security solution” to protect businesses from cyber attacks and payments fraud.
In July, it raised a further $US17 million in Series A funding to scale its fraud prevention software.
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