Pre-Transaction Fraud Prevention
SENGUARD intercepts malicious content at the point of compromise — before credentials are entered, before any payment is initiated. Deployed via SDK into your existing banking infrastructure. No customer behaviour change required.
Where intervention happens in the fraud journey
Recognised · Validated · Trusted
Every fraud detection system operating at payment authorisation shares the same fundamental flaw: by the time a customer initiates a transfer, they are already compromised. The malicious link has been clicked. The credentials have been entered. The manipulation has run its course.
Banks have no technical or legal access to threats that originate outside the banking channel — phishing emails, scam websites, social media manipulation — yet this is precisely where the vast majority of APP fraud begins.
PSR mandatory reimbursement rules now require a 50/50 liability split between sending and receiving banks. Institutions absorb losses they previously did not carry — plus the operational overhead of inter-bank claims, adjudication backlogs, and FCA complaints when cases are disputed.
Industry estimates indicate the overwhelming majority of fraud alerts generated by current detection systems are false positives — consuming investigator capacity, creating complaints from genuine customers, and in some cases drawing FCA scrutiny. Alert volumes cannot simply be reduced without creating regulatory exposure.
The majority of APP fraud originates via online platforms — entirely outside the banking environment. Banks cannot monitor, intercept, or respond to threats in these channels. The only moment institutions currently see the fraud is when the customer attempts to send money.
SENGUARD operates as a lightweight layer within your existing digital banking infrastructure — analysing content at the device level, in real time, before your customers interact with it. No additional apps. No customer training. No changes to your existing fraud stack.
Every URL a protected customer encounters is evaluated before they interact with it. Continuously updated threat intelligence covers known phishing domains, scam platforms, and emerging patterns identified through machine learning classification.
Pre-click URL analysisEach URL and its loaded content receives a threat index score. SENGUARD applies a three-tier framework: block high-risk content outright, alert on medium-risk with a proceed option, allow low-risk content seamlessly. Configurable per customer segment by your institution.
On-device threat scoringYour fraud and risk teams receive aggregate protection statistics — threats blocked, alert rates, and exposure trends across your protected segment. Individual browsing data is never accessed, stored, or shared.
Aggregate institution dashboardOn-device analysis. Anonymised hashes only. No personal data stored or sold.
These figures are drawn from live pilot deployments with high-risk customer demographics over an extended period. They reflect actual performance — not modelled projections.
URLs scanned per user, per week — confirming comprehensive coverage of the threats customers encounter in normal internet use.
Source: SENGUARD pilot deployment data · 12+ months continuous operation
Pilot users encountered high-risk events monthly — validating both the scale of threat exposure in target segments and the sensitivity of SENGUARD’s detection.
Source: SENGUARD pilot deployment data · 12+ months continuous operation
Of pilot users experienced above-average risk events monthly — confirming deployment is reaching genuinely exposed populations, not generating activity on low-risk users.
Source: SENGUARD pilot deployment data · 12+ months continuous operation
Crashes. Zero uninstalls. Over twelve months of continuous operation across a diverse user base — demonstrating production-grade stability before any production commitment is required.
Source: SENGUARD pilot deployment data · 12+ months continuous operation
Pilot deployments covered high-risk customer demographics over 12+ months of continuous operation. Production deployments generate institution-specific ROI metrics against your own fraud baseline.
Every fraud SENGUARD prevents is a case that never enters your operations pipeline — no alert to triage, no claim to process, no reimbursement to authorise. For high-risk customer segments where fraud rates are disproportionately concentrated, this creates measurable capacity reduction, not incremental efficiency gains.
PSR mandatory reimbursement has made APP fraud a direct P&L liability. SENGUARD converts that uncontrollable liability into a calculable protection investment — reimbursement cost avoided plus operational overhead eliminated, per prevented case. ROI is modellable against your institution’s own fraud rates before any commitment is made.
FCA Consumer Duty requires institutions to demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to protect customers in potentially vulnerable circumstances — before harm occurs, not after. SENGUARD generates a timestamped, audit-trail-ready record of preventative intervention for every protected customer interaction. That is what distinguishes “we had controls” from “we can prove our controls worked.”
For customers in potentially vulnerable circumstances, the first contact with SENGUARD is a clear warning before harm occurs — not a distressing call after a payment they cannot undo. Fraud prevented upstream means no account freezes, no false positive alerts harassing genuine customers, and no reputational damage from fraud incidents in protected segments.
Consumer Duty obligations require institutions to demonstrate proactive, documented steps to protect customers in potentially vulnerable circumstances — not reactive case management after harm has occurred. SENGUARD’s pre-transaction model generates a timestamped, auditable record of threats identified and interventions made for every protected customer.
PSR reimbursement rules allow institutions to reduce liability where reasonable steps to prevent fraud were taken and can be demonstrated. Pre-transaction intervention — with a documented record of warnings issued and threats blocked before any payment was initiated — provides materially stronger evidence than payment-time detection alone, where the fraud has already reached authorisation before any intervention occurs.
The FCA’s multi-firm review of APP fraud controls identified specific gaps in how institutions monitor and respond to threats that originate outside the banking channel. SENGUARD directly addresses this gap: the absence of any intervention capability for threats that begin upstream of any banking interaction.
For banking customers
Your bank has enabled SENGUARD to help keep you safer online. It works quietly in the background — filtering dangerous websites before you reach them. You do not need to do anything for it to work.
Both options are available and serve distinct purposes. During a pilot validation period, SENGUARD can be deployed as a standalone application — allowing institutions to generate real-world fraud prevention data without any technical integration into existing systems. For production deployment, SENGUARD integrates via SDK directly into your existing mobile and online banking platforms. SDK integration gives your institution complete control over distribution, customer experience, and protection parameters, ensuring 100% reach to your targeted high-risk customer segment without relying on voluntary customer download.
SENGUARD supports native iOS and Android applications, plus a JavaScript library for web-based banking platforms. The SDK footprint is under 5MB, and threat analysis introduces under 50ms of latency — designed to integrate without affecting the customer experience your institution has already built. White-label presentation means customers interact with your institution’s branding throughout.
SENGUARD analyses every URL a protected customer encounters against a continuously updated threat intelligence database, drawing on law enforcement feeds, global threat databases, and UK-specific fraud patterns validated through pilot deployment. Machine learning classification identifies characteristics of scam sites — including newly registered domains not yet in known threat lists — enabling detection of emerging threat patterns rather than relying solely on historical blocklists. Content-level analysis extends detection to social engineering language, grooming patterns, and credential-harvesting attempts across on-screen content.
Yes. Protection parameters, alert thresholds, and the boundary between blocking and warning are configurable by your institution. You can calibrate sensitivity by customer segment — applying higher protection thresholds for customers with prior fraud history whilst maintaining standard parameters for lower-risk populations. SENGUARD’s three-tier risk framework gives your institution meaningful control over the customer experience whilst ensuring the core protection layer remains active.
APP fraud follows a predictable multi-step sequence: exposure via a malicious link or social engineering contact, engagement with the fraudulent content, credential or OTP capture, and finally payment authorisation. Current fraud detection operates only at the final step. SENGUARD operates at steps one through three — intercepting malicious URLs before customers click them, detecting social engineering language during the engagement phase, and blocking credential and OTP sharing before the scammer obtains what they need. Cases prevented at these earlier stages never reach payment authorisation and generate no investigation burden for your fraud operations team.
Deployment targeting is determined entirely by your institution. You identify which customers fall within your high-risk segments — whether defined by prior fraud history, Consumer Duty vulnerability flags, life event indicators such as bereavement or health conditions, or customer tier classification. SENGUARD then provides protection to that defined population. This approach allows targeted deployment to the minority of your customer base that typically accounts for a disproportionate share of total fraud losses, maximising ROI before any decision to broaden coverage.
SENGUARD’s legal basis for data processing is Legitimate Interest under GDPR Article 6(1)(f), with fraud prevention representing a compelling legitimate interest for both institution and customer. Data minimisation is enforced at the architecture level: threat analysis happens on-device where possible, and only anonymised threat signature hashes — not full URLs or page content — are transmitted to the cloud. No personal data is stored or sold. Your institution receives aggregate protection statistics, not individual customer browsing records. Every production deployment includes a Data Processing Agreement, a pre-completed Data Protection Impact Assessment template, and privacy policy language for customer disclosure.
SENGUARD provides fraud and risk teams with aggregate reporting across the protected customer segment, covering threats blocked, alert rates, and exposure trends. Reporting is designed to support Consumer Duty audit requirements and provide the evidential record needed for PSR reimbursement defence. Full reporting capability and dashboard functionality are covered as part of the demo process.
Pilot deployments are structured to produce four measurable outputs against your institution’s pre-pilot baseline: fraud detection improvement expressed as a percentage increase; false positive reduction as a percentage decrease in alerts for the protected segment; investigation time reduction per case; and direct loss reduction as a percentage of monthly fraud losses attributable to the protected population. These metrics require a baseline data set from your institution at the outset of the pilot — our team will work with your fraud operations lead to establish this before deployment begins.