Building trust with a reputable bank through complex offshore fraud delivery

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Overview

When a major financial services organisation decided to offshore its fraud operations to Cape Town, South Africa, it was not driven by a desire to add expertise but by a clear need to reduce operational costs while maintaining control and quality. Entrusting Sigma Connected with such a sensitive and highrisk area represented a major step, one that required confidence in our capability, agility, and people.

Over 15 months, Sigma Connected worked closely with the client to build an entirely new fraud function from the ground up. What began as a bold decision to offshore critical fraud processes became a successful partnership underpinned by collaboration, speed, and a shared commitment to customer protection. Despite initial challenges, the client has since stabilised performance, maintained operations within its fraud loss risk appetite, and developed a resilient offshore model that meets both regulatory and operational expectations.

This case study highlights how Sigma Connected’s people-first culture, rapid adaptability, and operational expertise helped the client achieve sustainable fraud control, stronger resilience, and measurable cost efficiency, all without compromising customer outcomes.

Background

The client faced increasing cost pressures across all departments, including its fraud function. Like many institutions, it was challenged to find savings without sacrificing performance or compliance. The decision to offshore fraud operations was therefore primarily financial, aimed at reducing operational costs while maintaining oversight and control.

Sigma Connected was chosen to take on this challenge despite having no prior direct experience managing fraud operations. This decision reflected both the client’s confidence in Sigma Connected’s reputation for agility and its proven track record of standing up complex new functions at pace. The partnership began with a full outsource of around 50 FTE, covering fraud prevention, detection, and non-fraud disputes such as chargebacks and Section 75 claims.

The work required balancing three critical demands: managing fraud risk costeffectively, minimising disruption to genuine customers, and responding quickly to unpredictable fraud activity. From day one, Sigma Connected worked within the client’s systems, processes, and compliance framework, building knowledge, capability, and trust with each stage of implementation.

Solution

Sigma Connected built the fraud operation from scratch, aligning people, processes, and technology to deliver immediate continuity for the client. The team handled Tier 1 fraud cases, around 70% of all fraud volume, comprising lower-risk, high-volume investigations, largely focused on false positives and early fraud alerts.

Operating within the client’s real-time fraud monitoring environment, our teams managed alerts generated by advanced fraud detection systems and engaged customers directly to confirm or prevent fraudulent transactions. This work required precision, judgement, and empathy – recognising that every interaction involved customers potentially under stress or even mid-scam.

Our ability to match UK working hours, offer extended coverage, and deliver partial 24/7 support provided operational flexibility the client could not achieve domestically. Despite working within the client’s systems, Sigma Connected quickly developed the expertise to train and manage its own teams, creating self-sufficiency and consistency.

A defining moment came in early 2025 when the client suffered a large-scale fraud attack. Sigma Connected’s agility proved critical. We rapidly stood up new processes, redeployed skilled agents, and helped the client implement and stabilise its new fraud technology within weeks. This immediate, hands-on response contained the incident and restored confidence, a clear demonstration of Sigma Connected’s resilience under pressure.

Throughout the engagement, collaboration and transparency remained central. Our partnership approach ensured shared accountability, with Sigma Connected contributing both operational leadership and technical insight to refine workflows, improve fraud containment, and maintain service continuity through every challenge.

Results

After 15 months, the fraud operation is stable, compliant, and consistently operating within the client’s fraud loss risk appetite. Despite the loss of more than 8 years of in-house experience before outsourcing, the offshore team has achieved results that match, and in some areas exceed, the client’s UK benchmarks.

Sigma Connected’s ability to quickly recruit, train, and retain the right talent has been central to this success. Attrition rates remain significantly lower than industry averages, reflecting the engaging and purposeful nature of fraud work and our people-first culture in South Africa. Staff development, structured training, and ongoing support have created a skilled, motivated team capable of managing complex, high-pressure fraud interactions with professionalism and empathy.

The client’s fraud losses have remained within tolerance, and service levels (SLAs) are now consistently on target, a key indicator of stability and confidence in the partnership. Moreover, Sigma Connected’s operational readiness during the fraud incident mentioned in early 2025, demonstrated its capacity to respond to emerging threats with pace and precision, reinforcing its reputation as a trusted, agile partner.

Today, the client and Sigma Connected continue to collaborate closely, applying the lessons learned to strengthen fraud resilience and refine best practices. What began as a cost-driven outsourcing initiative has evolved into a strategic partnership – one built on trust, shared success, and an unwavering focus on doing the right thing for customers.