You might assume that a battle-tested businessman with a gruff exterior and a taste for salty language lacks an inner child, but you’d be wrong. Exhibit A is this little-known fact:

I have a soft spot for animated Disney movies.

Now, I could try to bluff a bit and say that my appreciation for “kid stuff” came about only by virtue of being a parent. But I’d rather just man up and let it be known that Carl T. Farrell likes cartoons. (And while we’re being confessional, I’m a fan of Harry Potter, too.) I enjoy these films because they offer such a strong contrast between good and evil. Let’s face it, seeing bad guys get what’s coming to them is just plain fun to watch.

And that’s exactly why I like fighting fraud with SAS. For me, outwitting criminals is a huge source of job satisfaction. I love the fact that the software we make has the power to “seek and destroy” the enemy. And I get to hear these stories all the time, because SAS is giving fraudsters the old one-two punch every day, all over the world. A great example is Laurentian Bank in my home country of Canada.

If we were telling this tale as a movie, the hero would certainly have a sizable hurdle to overcome. Financial crime costs Canadian financial institutions more than $1 billion a year. And while it’s not too hard to shut down suspicious transactions in a single channel, banks like Laurentian don’t have it that easy. They have to monitor accounts of every variety, plus the people who use them, and the credentials (legitimate or otherwise) that each entity provides.

Think of it like this: Instead of trying to catch one criminal sneaking in through the back door, banks have to be watching all doors, windows, floorboards – even the garden gate.

To strengthen its watchful eye and see the “big picture” of approaching threats, Laurentian Bank tied together three critical components of SAS^® Enterprise Financial Crimes for Banking: SAS^® Anti-Money Laundering, SAS^® Fraud Network Analysis and SAS^® Enterprise Case Management. It’s a triple punch right in the face of the bad guys, and it provides the bank with the ability to uncover unknown relationships among its customers, accounts and businesses – shining a spotlight on the fraudsters in action.

Of course, sometimes it’s not easy to catch a thief red-handed. Money laundering is a crime that can really only be detected after the fact. Fortunately, the three-pronged solution of Laurentian Bank speeds up the detection process for this type of crime, shortening the time required to shut down an account from six to eight days to just two hours. Score another one for the heroes.

But since bad guys are never permanently down for the count, we’re already looking to the scene of the next battle: cybercrime. Stay tuned for SAS to star in this “fraud double feature.” You’ll be hearing more about our efforts in cyber very soon.

There’s something cosmically satisfying about outsmarting someone who’s up to no good. It rights a wrong. It sets the world in order. It tips the balance back toward hope. And that’s not “soft.” That’s tough on crime.

To learn more about how Laurentian Bank is using analytics to combat fraud and money laundering, click here.