Financial fraud detection using graph neural networks: A systematic review

Financial fraud is a persistent problem in the finance industry that may have severe consequences for individuals, businesses, and economies. Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are a class of deep learning models designed to operate on graph data structures that consist of nodes and edges connecting them. GNNs have emerged as a powerful tool for detecting fraudulent activities in complex financial systems because they can analyze the network structure of financial transactions, capturing patterns and anomalies that traditional rule-based and machine learning methods might miss. The objective of this systematic review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state-of-the-art technologies in using Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) for financial fraud detection, identify the gaps and limitations in the existing research, and suggest potential directions for future research. We searched five academic databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, ACM, and science direct using specific keywords and search strings related to graph neural networks, financial areas, and anomaly detection to identify relevant publications, resulting in a total of 388 unique articles. We selected the relevant publications based on the inclusion, exclusion, and quality assessment criteria, and 33 articles were included in the review. In addition, forward snowballing was used to identify relevant papers that were not captured in the initial search. Data was extracted from the selected articles, then analyzed and summarized to identify current state, gaps, and trends in the literature. Our review presents a new taxonomy of GNNs applied in financial fraud detection and identifies potential research directions in this field. We find that GNNs applied to financial fraud detection have mostly been employed in a supervised or semi-supervised manner, with limited exploration of unsupervised approaches. In addition to financial areas, we explore the different types of graphs such as homogeneous, heterogenous, static, temporal, and dynamic graphs, and investigate the various learning mechanisms and anomaly types studied. We also note a lack of research on edge-level and graph-level anomaly detection commonly employed in financial domain.