Fraud and compliance teams at large banks have more in common than most people realize. Both are focused on protecting the institution, maintaining trust, and preventing financial harm. But, too often, these essential teams end up working in silos. That leads to duplicated work, missed red flags, and slower onboarding for legitimate customers.
Bringing these teams closer together is key to improving risk controls, increasing efficiency, and speeding up customer onboarding.
Here are some simple, straightforward steps fraud and compliance leaders can use to align and collaborate more effectively.
Start by identifying shared goals
At the end of the day, both fraud and compliance teams want the same thing: to protect the bank from financial and reputational harm. But how they measure success — and how they go about achieving it — can be very different.
Compliance teams tend to focus on regulatory requirements, audit readiness, and making sure nothing falls through the cracks. Their work is more proactive and documentation-heavy.
Fraud teams, on the other hand, are often in reactive mode. They try to stop bad actors as quickly as possible before they do real damage.
Those different approaches can cause tension. But acknowledging the shared mission — and reinforcing it at the leadership level — goes a long way toward creating mutual respect and better day-to-day collaboration.
Clarify ownership across the KYB lifecycle
A common stumbling block is fuzzy ownership in the KYB process. If roles aren’t clearly defined, teams might step on each other’s toes or, worse, let important risk signals go undetected.
The most effective banks start by explicitly defining roles and handoffs from day one. They spell out responsibilities clearly using something like the RACI model (which designates who is responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed). For example:
- Identity resolution: Fraud team is responsible, with compliance accountable
- Risk scoring: Compliance team is responsible, but fraud consults with context and input
- Ongoing monitoring: Fraud leads and is responsible, with compliance accountable
Every bank does things a little differently, but the key is to establish and document who does what so that everyone is on the same page from the start.
Connect fraud and compliance teams with the same trusted data
Even when fraud and compliance teams work together well, collaboration breaks down if they’re working off different datasets. To truly align, teams need access to the same accurate, real-time data.
Banks that prioritize a shared data infrastructure like a common entity record or risk model see big improvements, such as:
- Fewer false positives: Shared signals mean both teams focus on real threats, not noise.
- Less manual review: Data is reviewed once, not multiple times by different groups.
- Cleaner handoffs: Everyone is working from the same source of truth, so decisions are made faster and more confidently.
Banks using shared risk profiles speak the same language and don’t need to waste time second-guessing one another. That means faster onboarding and more efficient operations.
Build lightweight workflows for collaboration
Cross-functional teamwork doesn’t need to mean endless meetings. The best collaboration happens when workflows are lightweight, real-time, and easy to follow.
A few simple ideas to get started include:
- Shared dashboards to give both teams visibility into key activities and trends
- Tagging and notifications to quickly flag issues without formal escalation
- Low-friction escalation paths so urgent issues can be handled on the fly
Technology can make a big difference here. For example, Novo used Middesk’s business identity data and business verification solution to unblock bottlenecks across their fraud and compliance teams and ultimately hit an auto-approval rate above 50%.
Make cross-team alignment a strategic priority
Last but not least: This work needs to be owned at the top. When bank leadership treats fraud and compliance alignment as a strategic goal, not just an operational fix, the results speak for themselves:
- Stronger risk controls that adapt fluidly to emerging threats
- Enhanced regulatory cooperation that makes audits smoother and less stressful
- Accelerated onboarding processes that result in happier customers and faster revenue recognition
Then, leadership teams can set shared, cross-functional KPIs that demonstrate the benefits of cross-team collaboration and clearly show how success will be measured. Those KPIs often include reduced false positive rates, lower fraud losses per new business onboarded, and higher audit readiness scores.
The most successful teams celebrate wins along the way. This helps embed collaboration into the broader culture of the bank, building momentum not just within fraud and risk teams, but across the entire organization.
Want to see how shared data infrastructure can improve your KYB outcomes? Download the Liminal Link Index 2025 today.
