Visa announced its Smarter Stand-in Processing (Smarter STIP), a new capability that uses real-time artificial intelligence (AI) to help financial institutions manage transaction authorisations when service disruptions occur.
Using deep learning to analyse past transactions, Smarter STIP generates informed decisions to approve or decline transactions on behalf of issuers in the event that their systems go offline. Visa has harnessed the use of AI and neural networks to prevent fraud—Smarter STIP builds on that track record. It is said to be the first in a suite of new AI-powered innovations coming to VisaNet, its global processing network.
“Consumers expect instant and uninterrupted access to their funds—failure to meet that expectation can be costly. Stand-in processing has always been a vital assurance to our clients that when the unexpected occurs, we’ve got their back. By adding AI, that capability becomes smarter, stronger, and more dynamic.”
says Jack Forestell, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer, Visa.
Whether it’s scheduled maintenance or an unexpected outage, service downtime is disruptive for financial institutions and their customers. When stand-in processing is not in place, the potential impacts can be profound – lost of revenue due to failed transactions, poor cardholder experience resulting in call volume spikes to customer service centres, damage to reputation, and even scrutiny from regulators.
Visa’s new Smarter STIP service builds on its existing capability by using deep learning to analyse past transactions down to the cardholder level. Thus, the transaction decision that Smarter STIP provides is based on unique insights derived from the cardholder’s past purchasing behaviour, rather than solely on static rules applied across an entire card portfolio.
With this added intelligence, Visa is able to provide a transaction decision on the issuer’s behalf that more closely mirrors the issuer’s own decision making process—with the potential to decrease transaction declines for cardholders by up to 50% in some cases.
Featured image credit: VISA
