The Power of the Consortium in Financial Crime Management

Tim Light on What’s Next in a Big Data-Driven Future

In the last decade, consortium data has become the cornerstone of financial crime prevention. Large high-quality datasets are now essential for our industry to confront and stem the $3.1 trillion scourge of illicit activity threatening the global financial system. Information is fundamental to ensuring confidence, continuity, and resilience in the face of this ever-evolving threat.  

Nasdaq Verafin has led this transformation since launching our cloud platform in 2012 — spearheading consortium data with a network that has grown to more than 2700 financial institutions and 800 million counterparties strong. Tim Light, Principal Data Scientist at Nasdaq Verafin, joined us recently to share his insights from a decade of experience fueling this innovation that changed financial crime management forever. 

Manifesting Consortium Clarity

Scaling across continents, borders and leading banks, Nasdaq Verafin’s consortium is on an impressive growth journey. But behind the scenes, our cutting-edge processes normalize and harmonize vast volumes of disparate data, turning immense quantities of raw inputs into quality, structured, analytic-ready intelligence. This rigor sets Nasdaq Verafin apart in the industry, and Tim sees it as critical to driving valuable outputs and alerts for our customers. 

“Data quality is paramount. Poor entity resolution or weak labeling strategies can turn valuable information into noise. As the amount of data grows, flaws in architecture or data quality become increasingly evident in the performance of analytics. We excel at our ability to separate out meaningful signals and ensuring our architecture supports high-quality, actionable insights.” 

This leadership mindset is what positions Nasdaq Verafin for success. In an era defined by consortium data, leading the industry means responsible development and stewardship — with a strong emphasis on privacy, security, and innovation. 

As Tim explained, “extracting insights is important, and so is pushing boundaries to uncover deeper, more complex patterns — without sacrificing explainability. Our customers trust us to maintain data privacy and security. They also look to us for innovation and agility. We must enable financial institutions to use our technologies and the new capabilities that come with them while maintaining transparency and accountability, both for them and for regulators.”

A New Lens on Risk

As criminals have evolved, the efficacy of spreadsheets and isolated datasets in the fight against financial crime has weakened. Complex networks of money mules, cross-border payments fraud, surging AI-enabled scams and brazen cooperation between bad actors are now commonplace. Insights from a vast consortium network have the power to expose these distributed crimes to investigators.  

For Tim, seeing was believing. “I remember working to detect crime rings. These are groups of the most heinous people you can imagine actively evading detection. The first time we used our consortium to look at that problem holistically, I was awestruck — we’d see the same entity appear in alerts across different institutions. The siloes were gone, all the data points needed to catch them were right there. That’s the power that consortium technology brings to the table.” 

This strength in numbers has become a driving force for innovation at Nasdaq Verafin. From improving analytic performance, to fueling artificial intelligence and providing an unparalleled view of financial crime, consortium data is inherent in what we do. It’s an irrefutable advantage for financial institutions that Tim says is here to stay. “That’s the value of consortium data — a holistic view of risk. It’s that lens which will be table stakes for financial crime management very soon — if not already. The benefits of analyzing big data to investigations and analytic performance are genuinely massive.

Leading the Shift: AI and Consortium Data

AI and consortium data are rapidly converging, reshaping how financial networks are understood and protected. As data quality and labeling improve, analysis is shifting from isolated transactions to a broader, interconnected view of financial activity. That’s where Tim sees a step change in motion. 

“Today, we already visualize account behavior and embedding AI unlocks deeper, more predictive insights. We’re taking that further by having alerts and insights originate from the network itself, proactively identifying risk before it manifests.” 

This evolution is seeing investigations start from the consortium context, with alerts generating pre-emptively based on a network-level view of risk, rather than reactively based solely on transaction triggers. And at Nasdaq Verafin it’s already underway, driving a proactive approach to money mule detection. 

“Using our consortium, we can see that outgoing payments intended for an account were rejected by the sending institution. Based on that, we can prevent that account from receiving future fraudulent transactions, even before funds arrive,” said Tim. “The industry should expect a lot more of this in the next 5 years, if not sooner. It’s a shift toward truly proactive financial crime management, powered by the strength of AI and consortium data.” 

A Bold Future for Financial Crime Management 

What’s next for the consortium? Tim has some bold predictions. By 2030, perhaps even sooner, Tim expects that alerts originating from the network will drive more fraud prevention than transaction monitoring. What’s more, these alerts will be more accurate than transaction monitoring alone. This network view will drive most fraud investigations and allow financial institutions to understand every entity’s risk of fraud across the entire industry — far beyond what they can see within their own institution.

Tim also envisions a near future where AI is used to run network-level simulations of transaction activity, revealing how fraud might evolve next. “These simulations will predict when and where fraud might happen and help us get ahead of emerging threats and typologies we haven’t seen before,” he explained. They could also be used as a source of training data, allowing analytics to be strengthened against new scams without real fraud events occurring. The result? Financial institutions fighting fraud before it ever happens.

Embracing the Consortium Data Advantage

As financial crime continues to evolve, the industry’s ability to collaborate through consortium data stands as a defining advantage. The journey ahead promises not only deeper insights and proactive risk detection, but also a shift toward investigations that originate from the broader financial ecosystem — empowering institutions to prevent crime before it occurs. By embracing innovation, transparency, and a commitment to data stewardship, Nasdaq Verafin is paving the way for a more resilient financial system. 

For more insights from Tim Light, watch our recent webinar Advanced AI and Consortium Technologies: Innovating to Outpace Financial Crime.