Enterprise fraud: It's all about relationships

Remember the shock of hearing Darth Vader tell Luke Skywalker, “I am your father”? That’s pretty much the worst-case scenario for a family meeting.

Many people have a similar shock when they discover that they need to tell their own bank about their relationships with it. Like Luke, the bank seems oblivious to the shared history. Even when the customer has multiple accounts under just one name, no part of the bank seems to recognize all these relationships as belonging to a single person.

FICO has been working with a number of clients in the banking sector to improve their understanding and management of customers with multiple accounts. This kind of enterprise-wide approach is proving essential as a customer experience differentiator, and in a fraud management context it is putting some banks in front of the curve.

Consider the customer who has just used an ATM to acquire foreign currency at their home airport on their debit card, and is now using their credit card to secure a hire car or a hotel at their destination. Wouldn't it be great to be able to identify this customer's activity holistically, across their accounts, and to apply logic that helps to make more informed and connected risk decisions? Without this, the isolated analysis of a single overseas transaction on the credit card may prompt a fraud alert and a frustrated customer.

Or what about the parents who make a transfer to their student son or daughter? Wouldn't it be good to be able to link the family relationship and clear the funds quickly, rather than view a large credit as suspicious and subject to further checks?

Not, of course, that we foresee Darth making a transfer to Luke any time soon — but if he did the Force should be with him and not against him!