Consumer view
Controlled mock demo scenarios
Landing page
Non-suspicious activity in mock third-party app
Analyst dashboard showing detailed API activity and reasoning for blocks
Suspicious activity in mock third-party app being blocked

FraudFlow — Submission Write-Up

Inspiration

Canada's Open Banking framework is expected to launch in 2026. Most of the discussion focuses on user consent and data sharing, but there is another risk that receives less attention: what if the apps themselves are malicious?

Traditional fraud detection systems monitor what users do with their money. We asked a different question: what if you monitored how fintech apps behave at the API layer, before any financial damage reaches the consumer?

That idea became FraudFlow — a middleware security layer designed to monitor and control how third-party apps interact with bank APIs.

Product Summary

FraudFlow is an AI-powered fraud detection middleware that sits between a bank's Open Banking API and third-party fintech apps. Every API request from an app passes through FraudFlow before the bank processes it.

Instead of only detecting suspicious transactions, FraudFlow detects suspicious app behavior. It analyzes how an app interacts with the banking API and determines whether that behavior matches what a legitimate fintech service should be doing.

When an API request comes in, FraudFlow:

Intercepts the request at the gateway layer
Logs the request and analyzes behavior patterns
Generates risk signals based on activity patterns
Looks up historical incidents for similar behavior
Uses an AI model to reason about the situation
Decides to APPROVE, FLAG, or BLOCK the request

This prevents malicious or compromised fintech apps from accessing sensitive financial data or initiating risky actions.

FraudFlow surfaces these results through two dashboards:

Consumer Dashboard

Shows connected fintech apps
Displays trust scores and permission levels
Alerts users when suspicious activity occurs

Analyst Dashboard

Provides a live feed of API activity
Shows risk-ranked apps and decisions
Allows analysts to inspect fraud events in detail

To demonstrate the system clearly, we built interactive demo scenarios where a simulated fintech app triggers suspicious activity. The request flows through the full fraud detection pipeline, and users can watch the decision process unfold step-by-step through an animated visualization.

The key innovation is shifting fraud detection from transaction monitoring to application behavior monitoring, allowing threats to be stopped before financial damage occurs.