Mastercard collaborates with nine UK banks to employ AI-powered insights for real-time payment scam detection.
Global payments leader Mastercard is collaborating with nine UK banks to spot real-time payment scams before money leaves a victim’s account by using AI-powered insights.
With its newly launched AI-powered “Consumer Fraud Risk” service, Mastercard is officially going after fraudsters in the UK.
People and businesses in the UK have been duped by impersonation schemes of all stripes in recent years, and this practice is still going strong. Mastercard is using its most recent AI capabilities to fight this kind of fraud, together with its distinctive network perspective of account-to-account payments, to assist banks in anticipating and stopping payments to all kinds of frauds.
The nine banks that collaborate with Mastercard are TSB, Halifax, Lloyds Bank, Bank of Scotland, and NatWest. According to Mastercard, extensive payment data can be used to spot real-time payment scams before any money has ever left a victim’s account.
One of the first institutions to use the Consumer Fraud Risk tool, TSB, reported a notable improvement in its fraud detection capabilities. If other banks performed as well as the bank did in only four months, a year’s worth of scam payments would have been avoided, saving the UK an estimated £97 million.
Fraudulent authorized push payments
Although this is a big beginning for the UK’s fight against fraud, 40% of losses from bank crime are now attributable to “authorised push payment (APP) fraud.” By 2026, it is predicted that APP fraud would have cost the US and UK a combined $4.6 billion.
This kind of fraud happens when con artists persuade people or organizations to pay them money under the pretense that the recipient is a friend, supplier, or someone they have purchased legitimate goods from online.
Why APP fraud is still so common was highlighted by Ajay Bhalla, president of cyber and intelligence at Mastercard: “Banks have found these frauds to be exceedingly difficult to detect. Criminals haven’t needed to compromise any security measures because their consumers pass all necessary checks and send the money themselves.
“This form of fraud undermines victims’ confidence to interact online as we all lead more digital lives. Our objective is to develop and uphold that trust. We assist banks in identifying and predicting which payments are going to fraudsters so they can halt them in real-time using the most recent AI technology.
Over $35 billion in fraud damages have been avoided thanks to Mastercard’s own AI-powered cybersecurity solutions in only the last three years.
“Spotting fraudulent payments among the millions made every day is like finding a needle in a haystack, with scams becoming ever more complex,” said Paul Davis, director of fraud prevention at TSB. “Prevention and monitoring tools are key.” Through our collaboration with Mastercard, we can identify fake accounts and stop payments from ever going through.
