There’s more to fighting fraud than catching and overtaking the fraudster, it’s also about reducing the gap (and exposure) between you and them.

Fraudsters will always take advantage of new technologies and techniques in ways that you can’t even imagine.

The only way to really move forward is by reducing the time it takes to learn and prevent these techniques…

You can’t catch a criminal before they commit a crime (predictive profiling is still highly controversial, and biased: UK police use of computer programs to predict crime sparks discrimination warning).

Whilst criminal profiling has been around for decades, it is still an inexact science that can be easily bypassed, as the methods are well-publicised, even televised… (for example: as seen in the popular TV series, Mindhunter).

The dark web offers a literary motherload of how-to guides for circumventing the toolset vendors have at their disposal and, with the painfully slow speed with which some institutions implement new solutions, fraudsters have ample time to attack the current system’s weaknesses..  

In the same way that a neural model degrades over time, so will a fraud strategy, and if you aren’t able to rerun that model, you will be left on the blocks (or in the changing rooms).

New technology allows you to be both reactive and adaptive. By using self-learning models that do not degrade, you are no longer reliant on retraining your models every time there’s a new attack vector – an exercise that uses up valuable time, effort and money.

Self-learning models enable you to be on the heels of the fraudster, as opposed to stumbling around in the dark, implementing rules that are likely incurring false positives (a major problem in and of itself).

By being so close behind them, they will be under greater pressure and more susceptible to making mistakes, making them easier to catch.

About the author:

Steve has worked within the fraud and payment industry for over 14 years, in the banking, travel and retail space. He has worked closely with merchants advising on fraud strategies as well as running operations teams. He has worked with Banks and PSPs globally in product management roles, leading major development initiatives to deliver solutions to external customers.

Mark has worked within the fraud and risk industry for over 18 years, he has experience working with the UK’s largest banks and acquirers. This extends from setting up operational fraud teams to overseeing fraud strategies and loss management.

Mark’s has been responsible for fraud teams specialising in card, telephony and digital payment fraud in the retail and commercial sectors. He has lead strategic transformations by introducing new fraud technologies, where he has enhanced fraud and customer experience strategies.