TransUnion taps behavioral analytics to aid fraud detection, curb false positives

Consumers who have used a credit card for a legitimate purchase only to have the sale rejected may be encountering a problem that costs enterprises billions of dollars a year: cybersecurity technology that is designed for fraud detection often ends up generating false positives, incorrectly sending out an alert that a transaction is suspicious.

To combat this problem, US-based consumer credit reporting agency TransUnion has launched TruValidate Device Risk with Behavioral Analytics, designed to reduce fraud while also eliminating false positives in financial transactions.

Behavorial analytics help limit false positives for security

The new software adds consumer behavioral analytics to capabilities for anomaly detection, location intelligence, and device reputation and device behavior analysis provided by TransUnion’s existing TruValidate Device Risk product. It can help limit the more than $118 billion of global sales revenue lost to false positives during the fraud detection process, TransUnion said, citing figures originally reported by Javelin Strategy and Research.

False positives often lead customers to not only abandon their immediate purchases, but any potential future purchases with a business as well, TransUnion noted.

The TransUnion software is designed to be used by any organization that, in order to prevent fraud, wants to analyze customer behavior when they fill out forms required for financial transactions. The process helps companies monitor customers’ unique digital interactions without collecting any personal data, and has relevance for businesses across several industries, including financial services, insurance, gaming and gambling, retail and telecom, among others, TransUnion said.

“For day to day, fraud operations will use this solution within their fraud strategies, to do investigative research for case and risk management. Product management and heads of customer experience can look at user behavior insights to inform their customer experience strategy,” said Shai Cohen, senior VP and head of global fraud solutions at TransUnion. 

Key features within the new application include Behavior Insights and Insights Center, both based on software from behavior analytics company NeuroID, in an extension of TranUnion’s partnership with NeuroID that began in 2020.

Software evaluates customer familiarity with required data

Among other capabilities, Behavior Insights taps neuroscience techniques to evaluate a customers’ familiarity with the personal information required in online forms to classify their intent as genuine, risky or neutral. The software “works in tandem with TruValidate Device Risk to inform more precise device risk outcomes,” Cohen said.

Insights Center aggregates all behavior observed in an application to monitor broad trends, displaying the data through a near-real time dashboard to help businesses understand the behavior patterns of both risky and legitimate customers. The software “helps monitor changes in the percentage of user sessions that appear risky or that exhibit signs of being part of a fraud ring,” Cohen said. “Information security can use the dashboard to look at indications of risky behavior and bot activity.” 

Introductory pricing for the new software is transaction-based, Cohen said.