MuleHunter.AI is an AI-driven solution designed to detect and mitigate mule bank accounts effectively. Developed by Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH), Bengaluru.
Reserve Bank Innovation Hub (RBIH)
The RBIH is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India set-up to promote and facilitate an environment that accelerates innovation across the financial sector.
MuleHunter.AI
MuleHunter.AI enables the detection of mule bank accounts in an efficient manner. The RBI release said that a pilot with two large public sector banks had yielded encouraging results and asked banks to collaborate with RBIH to further develop the MuleHunter.AI model “to deal with the issue of mule bank accounts being used for committing financial frauds.”
The government is also putting efforts into cracking down on mule accounts. On Friday, the Department of Financial Services Secretary had a meeting with officials from the RBI, the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), which is affiliated with the Union Home Ministry, the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, and public- and private-sector banks to discuss the growing challenge of digital financial fraud, especially mule accounts.
At Friday’s meeting, banks were urged to adopt best practices, leverage cutting-edge tools, and foster inter-bank collaboration to address mule accounts effectively. They were also encouraged to explore and implement the RBI’s Mulehunter.AI solution to step up the detection and monitoring of mule accounts.
Mule Bank Account
Mule bank accounts are seen as a key element in the majority of online financial frauds in India.
The Centre had frozen around 4.5 lakh such bank accounts, which were typically used for laundering proceeds of cyber crime.
A mule account is a bank account that is used by criminals for illegal activities, including the laundering of illicit funds. A mule account is typically bought over by the criminals from their original users, individuals who are often from lower income groups, or have low levels of technical literacy.
The term “money mule” is used to describe the innocent victims who are used by the criminals to launder stolen or illegal money via their bank accounts. When such incidents are reported, the money mule becomes the target of police investigations, because it is their accounts that are involved, while the actual criminals remain undetectable.