Mastercard has announced the expansion of Trace, its advanced payment intelligence solution, to the Asia Pacific region, starting with the Philippines. Powered by large-scale payments data from multiple financial institutions, Trace provides a holistic, network-wide perspective to identify and trace fraudulent activities across payment networks.
The rise of real-time payments in the region has led to an increase in financial crime, including money laundering and fraudulent “mule” accounts used to move illicit funds rapidly between multiple accounts to evade detection. Traditionally, financial institutions rely on semi-manual methods or in-house AI, which primarily assess transactions within their own datasets. However, these approaches lack the network-wide visibility needed to trace sophisticated criminal activity across multiple banks.
Mastercard’s Trace uses advanced data science techniques to detect suspicious transaction patterns across the broader financial network, issuing proactive alerts to banks about potentially fraudulent accounts. The technology has already seen success in the UK, where it is deployed by 21 financial institutions covering 90% of the country’s Faster Payments Service network.
In the Philippines, Mastercard has partnered with BancNet, the country’s leading interbank network, which has onboarded 36 domestic lenders to enhance fraud detection and compliance efforts.
Matthew Driver, EVP, Services, Asia Pacific, Mastercard, emphasized the significance of this expansion:
“By ensuring that transactions remain secure and compliant, Trace helps to protect consumers and financial institutions, while also fostering trust in the digital economy—which will be critical for the region’s economic growth.”
With Trace, Mastercard continues to strengthen the security of digital transactions, providing financial institutions with the tools needed to combat fraud at a systemic level and build greater trust in the digital payments ecosystem.
