SwiftPay Launches SwiftGuard to Help Philippine Financial Institutions Combat Fraud

SwiftPay, a payments technology company under BSP-regulated Swift Technology Ventures, has launched a real-time fraud detection platform.

The platform, named SwiftGuard, was developed to help lenders comply with stricter digital security mandates.

Financial scams target more than 60% of Filipino adults annually, according to company data.

E-wallets are the leading channel for illicit transactions, accounting for 74% of cases, followed by wire and bank transfers at 14%.

Real-time fraud detection under new rules

The Philippines introduced the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (AFASA), alongside BSP Circular No. 1213, to strengthen fraud prevention requirements.

These regulations require banks and BSP-supervised financial institutions to deploy continuous fraud management systems capable of evaluating transactions instantly.

The new rules mandate monitoring across five parameters: transaction velocity, changes in mobile device and account information, geolocation, blacklist screening, and behavioural anomalies.

Customers may receive restitution from institutions that fail to implement adequate risk management systems or exercise required diligence.

SwiftGuard operates as an intermediary decisioning layer that reviews transactions across these five parameters.

The system returns a decision to allow, hold, block, or step up for additional verification, while the institution’s underlying core banking system retains final execution authority.

The software-as-a-service platform uses standard REST/JSON application programming interfaces (APIs) secured with OAuth 2.0.

It sits above a financial institution’s existing core infrastructure. The platform includes over 40 tunable rules, anti-money laundering integration, audit logs, and case-export capabilities for regulatory reviews.

System integration for banks

SwiftGuard is already live in production at financial institutions including VBank, Netbank, and AgriBank.

The platform also integrates natively with the Nextbank core banking and mobile platform, allowing institutions running on that network to adopt SwiftGuard on a plug-and-play basis.

“This regulatory shift makes clear that compliance cannot be treated as a one-time technology project,”

said Paweł Jędruch, Head of Technology at SwiftPay.

“Financial institutions that can make sound decisions as money moves will be better positioned to protect customers and scale digital services responsibly,”

said Damian Gil, Chief Revenue Officer at SwiftPay.