This month, Capital One will begin using the same technology platform to monitor its commercial banking services for indications of fraud that it uses for anti-money laundering (AML), providing corporate customers with a major benefit they'll never directly see: safer accounts. Stronger measures to prevent financial crimes have become increasingly important for banks, as perpetrators have become more sophisticated and the courts have sided with corporate plaintiffs suing banks for inadequately protecting their accounts.

McLean, Va.-based Capital One, with $199.8 billion in assets, will analyze commercial customers' wire transfers in real time before they leave the bank to detect potentially fraudulent activity.

"This is the first instance where we're doing the fraud detection work on the same platform as the AML work," says George Kunkel, vice president of AML operations at Capital One.