US-based behavioural biometrics provider BioCatch has created a public-private advisory board to help governments combat fraud in tax, welfare, and other payments deposited directly into citizens' bank accounts. The board's founding members are former IRS Criminal Investigation Chief Guy Ficco, former Australian Taxation Office Deputy Commissioner John Ford, and Dr Shlomit Wagman, former Director-General of Israel's Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority.
Flagging high-risk payments before disbursement
The board members will seek to establish partnerships with governments and law enforcement agencies. Once those relationships are in place, BioCatch and its bank customers plan to alert government offices to high-risk payments before tax refunds, unemployment benefits, pensions, and other disbursements are sent to account holders who may not be entitled to them. The aim is to move from investigating fraud after funds have been paid to preventing it in real time.
The initiative builds on BioCatch Trust, which launched in Australia in 2024 and allows member banks to share account intelligence in real time, giving them visibility into the trustworthiness of accounts held at other banks. With the advisory board, BioCatch plans to create data-sharing frameworks that extend fraud prevention beyond banking into public-sector payment systems. At the end of June 2026, more than 370 financial institutions used BioCatch's solutions.
The scale of losses to public programmes
Gadi Mazor, CEO of BioCatch, said research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows public bodies can lose up to 5% of their annual spending to fraud and related losses. In the US, the Government Accountability Office estimates that the federal government loses between USD 233 billion and USD 521 billion to fraud each year.
John Ford said fraud against tax and welfare systems diverts resources from those who need them most and undermines confidence in government programmes. Dr Shlomit Wagman said AI is accelerating the growth, scale, and sophistication of fraud, and that governments need capabilities to prevent it in real time, combining technology with intelligence sharing across financial institutions, governments, and borders.
