Payments Security

Mastercard Taps Gen AI for Faster, More Accurate Payments Fraud Detection

Mastercard has adopted generative artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to strengthen security measures for consumers and the broader payments network.

This move aims to bolster the Mastercard’s Decision Intelligence (DI) system, a real-time decisioning tool that currently facilitates the safe authorisation of 143 billion transactions annually.

The introduction of generative AI technology marks a major step up, enabling the analysis of over one trillion data points to predict the authenticity of transactions.

By evaluating account details, purchase history, merchant information, and device data in real time, Mastercard aims to refine its capabilities in distinguishing genuine transactions from fraudulent ones.

The advanced DI Pro technology, set to be released later this year, is designed to assess the relationships between various elements of a transaction to accurately gauge its risk level.

It promises to deliver improved fraud detection rates by an average of 20% and up to 300% in certain cases, thanks to its ability to process and enhance the overall DI score within a remarkable timeframe of less than 50 milliseconds.

This technological upgrade is also expected to significantly decrease the occurrence of false positives—legitimate transactions mistakenly identified as fraudulent—by more than 85%, thereby improving the precision of real-time transaction analysis.

Ajay Bhalla

“With generative AI we are transforming the speed and accuracy of our anti-fraud solutions, deflecting the efforts of criminals, and protecting banks and their customers. Supercharging our algorithm will improve our ability to anticipate the next potential fraudulent event, instilling trust into every interaction.

The precision of the solution – achieved by scanning potential points of sale in real time – has been shown in our own analysis to not only increase accuracy, but also reduce the number of false positives by more than 85%,”

said Ajay Bhalla, President of Cyber and Intelligence at Mastercard.

Featured image credit: Edited from Freepik