The Bank of England is joining forces with VocaLink Holdings Ltd. in a bid to identify criminal money being moved around the financial system by money mules.
The Bank is in the early stages of a pilot project to use VocaLink's anti-money laundering tool, which can track the movement of funds from account to account, according to Victoria Cleland, executive director for banking, payments and innovation at the BoE.
Cleland was speaking at PayExpo in London on Oct. 8.
A money mule is someone who is paid or forced by a criminal to "wash" money through their bank account in order to make suspicious transactions harder to trace.
U.K. cross-sector fraud prevention body Cifas estimated that there were some 40,139 "mule accounts" in the U.K. in 2018, an increase of 26% on the previous year. Cifas warned that young people and students are at the highest risk of being targeted to act as money mules, along with people in the 40 to 60 age bracket, since criminals see this age group as less likely to attract attention.
The BoE will use VocaLink's Mule Insights Tactical Solution to see of it can detect money being moved by mule accounts through CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System), the real-time gross settlement payment system used for sterling-denominated transactions in the U.K., according to Cleland. The BoE has had direct responsibility for the CHAPS system since 2017.
Mastercard Inc. acquired British-based VocaLink in 2017 in one of the U.S. payments giant's largest-ever deals.
