How Barclays Is Preventing Fraud With AI

Bottom Line: Barclays’ and Kount’s co-developed new product, Barclays Transact reflects the future of how companies will innovate together to apply AI-based fraud prevention to the many payment challenges merchants face today.

Merchant payment providers have seen the severity, scope, and speed of fraud attacks increase exponentially this year. Account takeovers, card-not-present fraud, SMS spoofing, and phishing are just a few of the many techniques cybercriminals are using to defraud merchants out of millions of dollars. One in three merchants, 32%, prioritize payment providers’ fraud and security strengths over customer support and trust according to a recent YouGov survey.  But it doesn’t have to be a choice between security and a frictionless transaction.

Frustrated by the limitations of existing fraud prevention systems, many payment providers are working as fast as they can to pilot AI- and machine-learning-based applications and platforms. Barclays Payment Solutions’ decision to work with AI-based solution Kount is what the future of AI-based fraud prevention for payment providers looks like.

How AI Helps Thwart Fraud And Increase Sales at Barclays   

Barclays Payment Services handles 40% of all merchant payments in the UK. They’ve been protecting merchants and their customers’ data for over 50 years, and their fraud and security teams have won industry awards. For Barclays, excelling at merchant and payment security is the only option.

In order to offer an AI-based suite of tools to help merchants make their online transactions both simpler and safer, Barclays chose to partner with Kount. Their model of innovating together enables Barclays to strengthen their merchant payment business with AI-based fraud prevention and gain access to Kount’s Identity Trust Global Network, the largest network of trust and fraud-related signals. Kount gains knowledge into how they can fine-tune their AI and machine learning technologies to excel at payment services. Best of all, Barclays’ merchant customers will be able to sell more by streamlining the payment experience for their customers. The following is an overview of the Barclays Transact suite for merchants.

Barclays and Kount defined objectives for Barclay Transact: protect against increasingly sophisticated eCommerce fraud attempts, improve their merchants’ customer experiences during purchases, prepare for UK-mandated Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) by allowing businesses to take advantage of Transaction Risk Analysis (TRA) exemptions, optimize payment acceptance workflows and capitalize on Kount’s Identity Trust Global Network.

Adding urgency to the co-creation of Barclays Transact are UK regulatory requirements. To help provide clarity and support to merchants and the market from the impact of Covid-19 the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) have agreed to delay the enforcement of a Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) until 14 September 2021 in the UK. The European Economic Area (EEA) deadline remains 31 December, 2020. Kount’s AI- and machine learning algorithms designed into Barclay Transact, tested at beta sites and fine-tuned for the first release, are effective in meeting UK government mandates.

How AI Is Turning Trust Into A Sales Accelerator At Barclays

The Barclays Payment Solutions and Kount teams believe that the more ambitious the goals for Barclays Transact to deliver value to merchants, the stronger the suite will be. Here are examples of goals businesses can achieve with this partnership:

1. Achieve as few false positives as possible by making real-time updates to machine learning algorithms and fine-tuning merchant responses.
2. Reduce the number of manual reviews for fraud analysts consistently by applying AI and machine learning to provide early warning of anomalies.
3. Minimize the number of chargebacks to merchant partners.
4. Reduce the friction and challenges merchants experience with legacy fraud prevention systems by streamlining the purchasing experience.
5. Enable compliance to UK-mandated regulatory requirements while streamlining merchants and their customers’ buying experiences.

Barclays Transact analyzes every transaction in real-time using Kount’s AI-based fraud analysis technology, scoring each on a spectrum of low to high risk. Each Barclays merchant’s gateway then uses this score to identify the transactions which qualify for TRA exemptions. This results in a more frictionless payment and checkout experience for customers, resulting in lower levels of shopping cart abandonment and increased sales. Higher-risk transactions requiring further inspection will still go through two-factor authentication, or be immediately declined, per the regulation and customer risk appetite. The following is an example of the workflow Barclays and Kount were able to accomplish by innovating together:

Conclusion

Improving buying experiences and keeping them more secure on a trusted platform is an ambitious design goal for any suite of online tools. Barclays and Kount’s successful development and launch of a co-developed product is prescient and points the way forward for payment providers who need AI expertise to battle fraud now. A bonus is how the partnership is going to enrich the Kount Identity Trust Global Network, the largest network of trust and risk signals, which is comprised of 32 billion annual interactions from more than 6,500 customers across 75+ industries. “We are excited to be partnering with Kount, because they share our goal of collaborative innovation, and a drive to deliver best-in-class shopper experiences. Thanks to Kount’s award-winning fraud detection software, the new module will not only help customers to fight fraud and prevent unwanted chargebacks, but it will also help them to maximize sales, improve customer experience, and better prepare for the introduction of SCA,” David Jeffrey, Director of Product, Barclaycard Payments said.