Using Artificial Intelligence, Visa Is Combatting Fraud at Nearly the Speed of Light

By using artificial intelligence (AI), Visa Inc. helped issuers prevent an estimated $25 billion in annual fraud, the company announced on June 17. The company accomplished this using Visa Advanced Authorization (VAA), a comprehensive risk management tool that monitors transaction authorization on the Visa global network, VisaNet, in real time. VAA evaluates every single transaction on VisaNet and helps issuers swiftly identify emerging fraud trends and patterns, allowing the issuers to respond promptly to instances of fraud, while approving legitimate transactions. "One of the toughest challenges in payments is separating good transactions made by cardholders from bad ones attempted by fraudsters without adding friction to the process," said Melissa McSherry, senior vice president and global head of Data Products and Solutions at Visa. The speed with which Visa can evaluate a transaction is crucial.