Mitek introduces liveness checking for checks

Digital identity and fraud prevention company Mitek introduced a new feature which reviews the authenticity of deposited checks to ensure they are real. The feature is a part of the company’s Check Fraud Defender product and determines if a physical check is being presented or if it is a picture or video of the check, the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Mitek says that check liveness correctly identified fraudulent checks with a 93 percent accuracy rate in a recent test of 2,000 real and fake documents. The checks identified in the test prevented a total of $1.8 million in fraud losses, according to the company.

With the new feature, Mitek is targeting a growing rate of check fraud which has nearly doubled in 2022. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, financial institutions filed over 680,000. reports of potential check fraud in 2022 compared to 350,000 reports recorded in the previous year.

“The sophistication of fraud and synthetic checks has never been more real,” says Michael Diamond, Mitek’s senior vice president and general manager. “With added signals, banks of all sizes can better identify and defend against fraudulent activities and drastically reduce fraud losses.”

The proliferation of spoof attacks using photos of identity documents has prompted the emergence of document liveness as a tool for identity verification. Check verification takes that approach to remote deposit applications.

At the beginning of the year, Mitek rebranded remote customer onboarding platform Hooyu as part of Mitek Systems after its acquisition in 2022, and announced a new executive chairman to its board of directors Scott Carter. It also recently joined the Open Identity Exchange (OIX).

In February, Mitek was again warned over a public listing misstep by Nasdaq after missing an important document filing deadline. The company received similar warnings last year.

Article Topics

banking  |  document liveness  |  fraud prevention  |  Mitek