MuleHunter.ai, an AI-enabled tool designed by the Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH), to detect and flag mule accounts in real-time, is detecting about 20,000 mule accounts every month, RBIH CEO Sahil Kini said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the Bengaluru Tech Summit, he said that as the volume of digital transactions grows, so does the number of first-time users, thus increasing the chances of fraud unless there are protective systems put in place. So a mule account is an essential intermediary in the movement of fraudulent funds, Kini, who was earlier the co-founder of fintech infrastructure firm Setu, explained.
These are funds from financial frauds, from illegal gambling sites, or funds that are used for the financing of terrorism, and they are usually moved through a network of bank accounts. It moves like a spidering pattern through the banking system, and mule accounts are intermediary accounts that enable that.
MuleHunter’s AI models are analysing transaction patterns of over 20 banks. “We expect that in two months, that number will go up significantly. Over the last few months, we have detected over 85,000 mule accounts, and their accuracy is between 85-90%,” he said.
RBIH is also developing the United Lending Interface (ULI), which is the RBI’s digital public infrastructure for the lending ecosystem, giving banks and NBFCs access to key financial and non-financial data of borrowers to make credit decisions more efficient. It helps lenders improve credit underwriting and disbursal, while allowing consumers to choose from a wider range of loan offers.