Securing digital transactions became much more complicated over the two years of the pandemic, according to a recent analysis by Visa. The San Francisco-based card network said a combination of more online and mobile transactions, less attentiveness from consumers and inadequate or outdated fraud prevention technology implemented by merchants have resulted in an easier environment for bad actors.
While Visa acknowledged “human frailty” as part of the problem—78 percent of people who receive unsolicited links click on them and 51 percent of people admitted to using the same password for most of their online activity—advancing technology is an important consideration for online merchants and financial institutions.
As an organization, Visa has access to growing mountains of transaction data. The company noted that antifraud solutions leveraging artificial intelligence and deep learning have become vital for any company to sift through all the data their systems yield and provide accurate insights about how fraudsters are attacking them. Visa touted its own commitment to upgrading fraud prevention with AI.
“With an investment of $500 million in artificial intelligence and data infrastructure, for example, Visa can power over 60 different AI capabilities that can automate much of the heavy lifting in fraud detection—a time-consuming task that many clients are doing manually today,” the company said in a blog post on the topic. “One service alone, Visa Advanced Authorization, helped prevent an estimated $26 billion in fraud in 2021.”
The network also acknowledged the tension between strong fraud prevention and turning away legitimate customers. The company said the latest deep learning techniques can reduce false declines significantly.
