Qualia expands wire fraud protection platform for title and escrow

Qualia has expanded its wire fraud prevention platform, Qualia Shield, adding new automated verification capabilities designed to help title and escrow companies identify potential fraud during real estate transactions.

Shield is integrated into the Qualia title and escrow operating system and automatically performs risk assessments whenever wire instructions are added or modified during a transaction, leaders said.

Expanded features include evaluation of all wire types, including commission payments, agent disbursements and other transaction-related wires.

It also verifies bank account ownership using bank ownership records and cross-checks identity information against public records to identify discrepancies involving names, addresses, Social Security numbers and dates of birth.

“We’ve seen the wire fraud threat evolve from opportunistic to industrialized,” said Nate Baker, CEO and co-founder of Qualia. “Criminal networks have built operations specifically to target the real estate closing process. They know the pressure points. They know when teams are rushed. And they’ve become very good at exploiting the gaps that exist between disconnected systems. The only way to close those gaps is to make protection automatic and native to where the work happens.”

Additional updates include artificial intelligence-powered name matching intended to reduce false-positive identity mismatches by recognizing common variations such as initials, suffixes and hyphenated names.

Transactions that receive a low-risk assessment may qualify for up to $2 million in wire fraud insurance coverage backed by Lloyd’s of London, Qualia said. The company added that approximately 99% of transactions processed through its platform fall below that coverage threshold.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.