Infographic: Helicopter Blades, Airbags and Analytics

People describe lots of things as being “real-time.” But what does that phrase mean? If a task takes 10 seconds, is it real-time? If it takes one second, is it real-time? How about blinking your eyes—can you do that in real time?

Below is an infographic that investigates what constitutes “real-time.” It compares how fast the average person blinks, a car airbag inflates, and a helicopter blade rotates.

When it comes to combating payment fraud, we don’t think any of those speeds are good enough to earn the “real-time” label. In just 40-60 milliseconds, our fraud management software completes 15,000 calculations based on a ton of data associated with each credit card (or debit card) swipe, including the transaction amount, merchant profile, transaction location, point-of-sale device, time of day, and account history. All 5X faster than the blink of an eye!

The infographic can be downloaded at www.fico.com/realtime.