Thinking long-term while in the midst of a crisis is a challenging exercise. As fraud practitioners, it’s easy to see the immediate impact on our lives – from reduced operational capacity, to the proliferation of COVID19 scams, to the need to modify our strategies as consumer spending habits have suddenly shifted. However, it’s critical that we also take the time t…

In my last post I wrote about the fraud and financial crime problems the USA is likely to encounter as real-time payments increase in both value and volume. The answers are neither fast nor easy, but there are things that all participants can do. What Banks Can Do In countries such as the UK, real-time payment schemes have been ubiquitous for many years. Banks h…

The importance of Third-Party Risk Management is growing, and by association cybersecurity risk assessment. FICO has successfully partnered with US mobile carrier T-Mobile to meet this challenge.  Read the recent Dark Reading piece on this topic.  Doug Clare, Vice President of Fraud, Compliance and Security Solutions, at FICO discusses the challenge in a…

Adaptive identity authentication is the process of tailoring each customer authentication to the specifics of the request. It involves calibrating multiple sets of risk indicators to determine the type of authentication needed, and how strong to make it. Adaptive identity authentication is increasingly important. Customers want to start and finish their interaction…

In the past weeks, all of our lives have experienced significant disruption. We are balancing caring for the health of loved ones, learning to home-school children, all while continuing to work. Not to mention losing social outlets and drastic economic changes – we really don’t need more life hurdles. So it’s with the top focus of safety and health in mind that I i…

As I recently blogged, the use of prepaid cards is growing, in forms ranging from one-time gift cards to reloadable payment mechanisms for benefit distribution. In that blog I introduced FICO’s patented Multi-Layered Self-Calibrating (MLSC) fraud model, which we have successfully deployed to overcome regional- and usage-specific variations in normal prepaid card spend…

We recently commissioned a survey of 5,000 people across 10 countries to better understand how people view security when they open or use their accounts. This shows that most have become relaxed about using biometrics in order to identify themselves to a range of providers including their banks. They report they are happy to give their bank a biometric such as facial,…

Individuals are using their own identities to purchase phones and other equipment, with the intent of never paying.  Techniques for thwarting identity theft are ineffective at predicting fraudsters that want to game the system in their own name.  This type of fraud is known as subscription fraud or first party fraud, where a consumer is opening an account fo…

For a while now, it seems that every drugstore in the U.S. has become a prepaid card store, with rows and rows of gift and other prepaid debit cards on display. It’s no illusion––prepaid services are one of the fastest-growing segments of the financial payments industry. In April 2019 The Wall Street Journal reported, “The total amount loaded on general-use prepaid ca…

Visma Connect recently interviewed Jürgen Krieg, FICO's head of global compliance sales. In this excerpt from that article, Jürgen elaborates on the importance of compliance.  In September 2019, Fico and Visma announced their partnership to Offer SaaS Anti Financial Crime Solutions in Western Europe. A partnership aimed at helping banks, payment providers and…

The Clearing House Association announced in January 2020 that on February 1st the limit for a single transaction using its RTP scheme will increase from its current $25,000 to $100,000. US payment schemes operate in a uniquely competitive environment.  The Clearing House Association’s RTP  - as well as The Automated Clearing House - offer same day…

For a while now, folks at FICO have been talking about the convergence of fraud- and financial crime-fighting data, processes and systems. And with good reason—all signs indicate this direction to be the most efficient for banks, the most beneficial for customers, and the most aligned with regulation. In this blog I’ll reprise the product strategy version of the conve…