Mastercard has developed a new AI tool to prevent scams

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Mastercard has launched a new AI solution in the UK called Consumer Fraud Risk (CFR). The company said the software works in real-time to predict and prevent payments to scams of all kinds.

CFR is now available to customers of nine banks including Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Monzo and TSB. The announcement didn’t state the other banks that were included but they were likely to be smaller banks.

Explaining how the solution works, Mastercard said:

“Organized criminals move ‘scammed’ funds through a series of ‘mule’ accounts to disguise them. To counter this, for the past five years Mastercard has worked with UK banks to follow the flow of funds through these accounts, and then close them down.”

“Based on insights from this tracing activity and overlaying them with specific analysis factors such as account names, payment values, payer and payee history, and the payee’s links to accounts associated with scams – Mastercard’s AI solution provides banks with the intelligence necessary to intervene in real time and stop a payment before funds are lost.”

TSB, one of the banks that partnered with Mastercard on this initiative, has been using the Consumer Fraud Risk tool and in the past four months has greatly increased its fraud detection. Based on its results, TSB believes that £100 million could be saved in the UK if all banks mirrored its performance.

In terms of a rollout, Mastercard said the Consumer Fraud Risk tool would be adopted by other banks during 2023. Mastercard said it’s also looking to bring the technology to international markets to scale the solution and make it even more effective.

The company said that this AI is aimed at those cases where a customer gets past all of the bank's checks and sends the money themselves, not realizing they’re being scammed. It said by stopping customers from losing money to scams, it can help build and maintain people’s trust in online banking.