Fraud Detection is an important tool to protect against cybercriminals who steal identities, money and other assets. Fraud detection solutions use machine learning, statistical analysis and behavior monitoring to identify precursors of fraud. Financial institutions rely on these systems to find and stop credit card fraud, insurance claims fraud and telecommunications fraud. Government agencies collaborate with fraud detection systems to spot tax fraud, embezzlement and social security fraud among others.
The Crucial Role of Fraud Detection in Financial Security
To detect fraud, the system needs a large amount of data to compare against. This process is referred to as “training” or “modeling”. The model learns from the transaction data what normal transaction patterns look like. Then it identifies and focuses on abnormal events that deviate from those patterns. It can then be triggered to take action, such as blocking the activity, sending an alert or reporting the issue to human investigators for further investigation.
AI-powered software works around the clock to identify anomalies and suspicious activities. It’s an ongoing process that continuously adapts as criminals create new ways to infiltrate systems and steal assets. It’s critical that any solution be designed to minimize false positives, which are transactions that are declined when they shouldn’t be. This causes a bad customer experience and can damage relationships.
It’s also important that the solution can handle high transaction volumes and not be overwhelmed by data. The solution should also be able to scale and support peak transactions during holiday seasons or special events. Finally, it’s important that the solution can share and leverage data with other organizations. This improves efficiency and effectiveness in detecting fraud.