Upgraded Network Fraud Alerting and New Fraud Authorization Blocking
Enable Rapid Response to Fraudulent Transactions
HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 18, 2013--
To help financial institutions respond to the growing sophistication and
speed of debit card fraud attacks, PULSE, one of the nation’s leading
debit/ATM networks, has implemented a major upgrade to its DebitProtect
Fraud Mitigation Service and introduced an optional fraud blocking
service. The enhanced system allows transactions to be blocked in real
time, enabling PULSE participants to respond faster to suspected fraud
before more fraud is perpetrated on a card, thus reducing losses and
decreasing cardholder impact.
Payments fraud is a constant threat and remains a concern for both
financial institutions and consumers. The annual Debit Issuer Study,
commissioned by PULSE, finds that financial institutions consistently
rank debit card fraud among their top two concerns. One out of every
five debit cardholders in the U.S. has experienced fraud on their card
in the last five years, according to a 2012 study by ACI Payment Systems
and Aite Group. The Federal Reserve Board estimated U.S. debit card
fraud losses to be $1.38 billion in 2011.
DebitProtect Service
The DebitProtect fraud mitigation system was first launched across the
PULSE network in 2007. Since that time, PULSE has continued to refine
DebitProtect and invest in state-of-the-art processing technologies. The
company also has made strategic investments in personnel to provide
custom fraud consulting services to help financial institution
participants reduce the risk of fraud losses.
PULSE collaborated with Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Retail Decisions (ReD)
on the DebitProtect upgrade. PULSE deployed the ReD PRISM®
software solution, implemented on HP NonStop servers. The initiative
received the 2012 HP Alliance ONE Partner of the Year Award for
Innovation.
DebitProtect operates in milliseconds, evaluating transactions in
flight, detecting high-risk transactions and alerting card issuers in
seconds, often before the cardholder has left the terminal.
“This technology leap was necessary because fraud sophistication and
speed are increasing, with fraud cycles becoming shorter, more varied
and harder to detect,” said George Danforth, PULSE vice president,
Emerging Products. “DebitProtect uses unique PULSE data, scoring and
analytics to monitor debit transactions at ATMs and the point of sale
and adds an additional layer of fraud detection to those provided by
processors and in-house systems.”
Financial institutions also can take advantage of the optional PULSE
DebitProtect Authorization Blocking service, enabling them to more
effectively detect, block and manage debit card fraud. The comprehensive
service includes not only real-time alerting, blocking and card
autoblocking, but also a comprehensive suite of services including
expert fraud consultation, rules pretesting and analytics, and 24x7
service response. DebitProtect Authorization Blocking leverages all of
the technical advances of the new core processing platform in one fully
integrated system and program.
“We have found DebitProtect to be a very valuable service, giving us a
better overall view of our cardholder activity – normal and suspicious –
to more effectively mitigate fraud risks for the bank,” said Michael
Lindsey, senior vice president of BancorpSouth. BancorpSouth was one of
the financial institutions that participated in an extensive beta
testing program of the enhanced DebitProtect. “The real-time transaction
blocking feature, in particular, has limited our fraud losses in many
situations. Now that we have DebitProtect, I don’t know how we could do
without it.”
In addition to the enhanced fraud detection service and new
Authorization Blocking option, financial institution participants may
use an optional service that includes the development of custom rules
specific to their organization. This helps minimize the impact of false
positives on cardholders.
“DebitProtect uses a layered approach to uncover fraud that might go
undetected by other fraud systems,” said Eric Lillard, PULSE vice
president, Fraud Services. “Our team of experienced fraud analysts
evaluates the breadth of transactions made daily and attacks across
multiple institutions registered for the service.”
The DebitProtect system and Authorization Blocking service includes a
new web portal with a host of features to enable issuers to manage a
comprehensive fraud mitigation program. These services are available to
all institutions that participate in the PULSE network.
About PULSE
PULSE, a Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) company, is a leading
debit/ATM network, serving approximately 6,100 financial institutions
across the United States. This includes more than 4,100 issuers with
which PULSE has direct relationships and 2,000 additional issuers
through agreements PULSE has with other debit networks. PULSE links
cardholders with ATMs and POS terminals at retail locations nationwide.
Through its global ATM network, PULSE provides worldwide cash access for
Diners Club and Discover cardholders through 1.3 million ATM locations.
The company also is a source of electronic payments research and is
committed to providing its participants with education on emerging
products, services and trends in the payments industry. For more
information, visit www.pulsenetwork.com.
Source: PULSE
PULSE
Patty Sendelbach, APR, 832-214-0395
patty.sendelbach@pulsenetwork.com
or
DPK
Public Relations
Daniel Keeney, APR, 832-467-2904
dkeeney@dpkpr.com