SHARE
Digital fraud incidents are growing at an alarming rate, and traditional risk management solutions are no longer enough for financial services organisations to stay one step ahead of financial criminals.
For that reason, financial institutions globally are moving beyond traditional risk management approaches that prioritise identifying suspicious transactions, towards strategies focused on identity- and behaviour-led fraud prevention. That’s according to Bradley Elliott, CEO of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) platform RelyComply.
Elliott says that rapid digital adoption has exposed both traditional financial institutions and emerging fintech players to increasingly complex risks. Financial criminals are shifting their focus from onboarding and one-off fraudulent transactions to compromising existing accounts through account takeover (ATO), using identity, credential, and behavioural manipulation techniques.
The numbers tell a stark story. In South Africa, digital fraud incidents surged 86% to around 98,000 cases in 2024, according to SABRIC statistics. Fraud losses for 2024 reached R1.9 billion, up 74% year-on-year. Around 65% of fraud now occurs through banking apps, with criminals relying heavily on social engineering tactics such as phishing, one-time password (OTP) interception, and impersonation to gain access to legitimate customer accounts.
This trend reflects a broader global shift in fraud patterns, where attacks are increasingly focused on exploiting trusted digital identities rather than isolated transactions.
Says Elliott: “What we’re seeing is a paradigm shift in digital fraud. Criminals are no longer just exploiting gaps at onboarding – they’re taking over trusted accounts, often long after customers have joined. Institutions that treat identity as static are already falling behind, and the cost of inaction will only rise.”
Purple Group looks to RegTech to support scale
For fast-growing fintechs, keeping one step ahead of these challenges is essential if they are to scale their businesses and build customer and regulatory trust.
South Africa’s Purple Group, which owns platforms like EasyEquities, EasyProperties, EasyCrypto, EasyRetire and GT247.com, is a case in point. Purple Group has grown from a startup into one of South Africa’s most recognised retail financial services and technology companies with over 3 million customers.
Like many fintechs, the Purple Group leveraged a range of point solutions to rapidly build out its value proposition and meet regulatory requirements. But as the company started to scale, its disparate technology environment started to become misaligned with the governance, assurance and compliance demands faced by a JSE-listed financial services group expanding into new markets such as Kenya, the Philippines and Australia.
“When we hit our first 100,000 customers, we realised there’s a huge chasm between being a startup with a handful of customers and growing into a major financial services player,” says Rish Tandapany, Group COO at Purple Group.
“As we scaled our business, we realised we needed to ensure our operational processes and risk management platforms could efficiently address a customer base of millions rather than 100,000.”
For a company running online financial platforms, managing fraud and compliance risks during the onboarding phase is critical, as it sets the foundation for verifying identity, establishing trust and preventing bad actors from entering the system in the first place.
Tandapany says that fast digital onboarding is a competitive necessity for fintechs, but is also a vulnerable surface area for fraud, synthetic identity attacks and compliance failures.
Looking for the right technical and cultural fit
After evaluating a range of solutions, Purple Group selected RelyComply’s enterprise Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer software to consolidate its fragmented compliance and fraud stack.
The implementation focused on strengthening onboarding controls, improving identity verification, enhancing fraud detection capabilities and bringing greater maturity to AML processes.
According to Tandapany, Purple Group chose RelyComply based on both technical competency and cultural fit.
“The first non-negotiable was finding a vendor who knew more about financial crime than us,” he adds. “The second was technical competency: not just talking about it but demonstrating it through real use cases and showing an understanding of our technology stack.”
Elliott, says companies like Purple Group need solutions that can scale dynamically with their growth, adapt to evolving fraud typologies and operate across multiple regulatory jurisdictions simultaneously. “Secure onboarding is not only about compliance and fraud management,” he adds. “Faster, more trusted verification, screening and onboarding is a competitive edge.”
From 0 to 10 million customers
Tandapany adds: “We see a clear path to serving many more millions of users over the next few years. To go on this journey, we need confidence in our technology stack. We not only need to ensure our cadence keeps up with our growth, but also with emerging fraud risks and evolving regulatory requirements. With RelyComply, we have a mature onboarding platform that supports our global expansion plans.”
For financial services providers navigating rising identity fraud, accelerating digital crime and international expansion, transaction monitoring solutions are no longer enough. The future of fraud prevention lies in platforms that are identity-led, behaviour-informed, and built for scale from day one.
Such solutions not only enable cost-effective compliance but also allow institutions to offer smoother onboarding experiences that delight customers and build trust.
Note: A short supporting video featuring Rish Tandapany is available on request.
About Purple Group
Purple Group is a South African-based financial services and technology company (JSE: PPE) focused on democratising investing through digital platforms. It is best known for its subsidiary EasyEquities, which provides low-cost fractional share trading, alongside other offerings like EasyProperties, EasyCrypto, and GT247.com.
About RelyComply
RelyComply empowers banks, insurers, financial services providers, and innovative fintechs with a single, fully integrated KYC and AML platform. Designed for seamless implementation and rapid deployment, our intelligent technology enhances efficiency while detecting financial crime, enabling you to reduce risk and costs, ensure compliance, and drive strategic growth.
INFO SUPPLIED.