Secure Closings cut fraud risk, boost transparency, and add insurance options—modernizing how municipalities and corporations move money.
When you think about closing a deal, whether a municipal bond issue, a merger financing, or a corporate debt issuance, the focus is often on rate, covenants, and legal opinions. But an equally critical dimension is how the deal actually gets closed: The final wires, the instructions, the identity checks, the audit trail. That’s where risk lives, and legacy systems are failing.
Here’s why the closing process needs modernization, how traditional closings are falling short, the rise of secure closings, and what you can do now.
Why Closings Need to Evolve
Municipalities and corporations face increasing pressure to safeguard funds, prove compliance, and deliver transparency to stakeholders. Cyber fraud, mis-keyed instructions, and unauthorized account access are no longer rare edge cases; they are daily risks. In many deals, the moment of closing—the wire transfer—is the most vulnerable point in the lifecycle.
When closing a deal means wiring tens of millions, “good enough” security is not good enough.
The Risk Landscape: Data You Can’t Ignore
- Wire fraud / Business Email Compromise (BEC) is exploding. In 2023 alone, BEC schemes accounted for nearly $2.9 billion in losses in the U.S.
- The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported $12.5 billion in total fraud losses in 2024 from consumer reports, a 25% increase over the prior year, with a large portion tied to scams involving bank transfers or other payment methods.
- Real estate is especially vulnerable. In 2020, over 13,600 people in the U.S. were victims of wire fraud in the real estate and rental sector, with losses exceeding $213 million.
- For government entities, when fraud or improper payments occur, losses are not small. Local government fraud cases average 123% higher in dollar-loss than state government cases, and when fraud continues undetected for long periods (e.g., over 5 years), the average loss exceeds $800,000.
These numbers show what many in finance already feel: the stakes are rising, methods are more sophisticated, and traditional controls are not enough.
A New Standard for Closing Transactions
Secure Closings redefine what it means to move money in high-stakes finance. Instead of fragmented communication and manual verification, every party works from a single, password-protected platform. Authentication, identity checks, and account validation are built in. Each participant sees exactly what they need to see—and nothing more.
The result: Funds move only when every box is checked, every party confirmed, and every instruction verified.
Traditional Closings vs Secure Closings
Adding Insurance to the Equation
Even with robust controls, the unexpected can happen. That’s why Secure Closings can be paired with Basefund Transaction Insurance, a warranty-backed policy. It is the final layer of protection, covering disbursement failures caused by errors, omissions, or fraud attempts. Coverage scales with the transaction size, so you can align protection with the stakes of each deal.
Why Secure Closings Are No Longer Optional
- Escalating financial loss
The billions lost annually to wire fraud and BEC show that the margin for error is shrinking. Vulnerabilities in closings translate directly to real losses. - Regulatory and reputational risk
Municipal governments have oversight from regulators. Corporations answer to investors, auditors, and bondholders. A failed wire or fraud instance can cost far more than the transaction itself. - Complex counterparties and jurisdictions
More deals involve multiple parties and cross borders. Traditional workflows often break down under that complexity. - Insurance and enabled trust
Secure Closings create the foundation for optional insurance or warranties. With traceability and verification, risk can be transferred and premiums lowered.
The Benefits for You
- Reduced risk: Eliminate the vulnerabilities of email-based instructions.
- Transparency: Work from a single source of truth with a complete audit trail.
- Flexibility: Adapt coverage and workflows to deal size, counterparties, and timing.
- Confidence: Secure infrastructure plus optional insurance means you can close without second-guessing.
What Secure Closings Look Like in Practice
- A cloud platform where all closing parties log in and work from a shared workspace.
- Role-based access so only the right people see the right information.
- Early account verification, giving you time to reconcile and detect fraud before wires move.
- Independent confirmations of wire instructions, ideally out-of-band.
- An immutable audit trail capturing approvals and activity.
- Optional insurance or warranty components for financial protection in case of error or fraud.
Barriers and How You Can Overcome Them
The Case for Basefund’s Secure Closings
At Basefund, Secure Closings are more than a set of features. They reflect a philosophy: Financial transactions that move real value deserve real rigor. We believe in:
- Building auditable and transparent platforms.
- Embedding controls that anticipate modern fraud tactics.
- Offering optional insurance coverage to contain financial impact when things go wrong.
The Inflection Point Is Now
We are at a moment where the gap between what must be done to prevent fraud and what is actually done is no longer theoretical. It is empirical, expensive, reputational, and growing. For municipalities, corporations, underwriters, and trustees, secure closings are not an optional upgrade. They are becoming a minimum standard.
Secure closings are more than protection against fraud. They are an investment in trust, transparency, and the long-term resilience of your financial operations.
