Mandate Fraud

How does mandate fraud work?

A mandate is the standing instruction that tells your systems where a supplier or employee should be paid. In mandate fraud, a criminal poses as that party and asks you to update the bank or direct debit details attached to the mandate. Because the change looks administrative, it often bypasses the scrutiny a new payment would attract. A recognisable Australian example: a payroll or accounts team receives a polite request, apparently from a regular contractor, to update their nominated account “for future payments.” Once the mandate is changed, every scheduled payment flows to the fraudster until someone notices the money never arrived.

Why it matters for Australian finance teams

Mandate fraud is dangerous precisely because it is quiet and recurring. A single successful change can divert a stream of payments, not just one. The ACCC’s Scamwatch and the National Anti-Scam Centre highlight bank detail change requests as a core tactic in the payment redirection losses reported by Australian businesses each year. For finance teams, the exposure grows with the number of active mandates and the speed of the payments rails once a debit is authorised.

How ezyshield helps

ezyshield treats a change of details as a trigger, not a formality. When bank or account details change, it re-verifies the person, the business through ABN and ASIC records, and ownership of the new account before any payment follows the updated mandate. This closes the gap that mandate fraud depends on. Every check is recorded in an append-only audit trail that is never edited or deleted. See how it works and verify a supplier bank account in Australia.