Visa Leverages Generative AI to Detect Suspicious Financial Transactions Effectively

Visa is harnessing the power of generative AI to combat the pervasive issue of financial fraud in customer transactions. Fraudsters often exploit bank accounts using digital tools to conduct seemingly harmless test transactions, which mimic genuine activities to evade detection. This malicious technique, known as enumeration attacks, results in an alarming loss of approximately $1.1 billion annually, as reported by Visa.

To address the growing threat of enumeration attacks, Visa has introduced the Account Attack Intelligence (VAAI) Score tool, leveraging generative AI to identify suspicious transactions in real-time. “Enumeration can have lasting impacts on our clients, and there’s an urgent need for tools that can detect and prevent these attacks swiftly,” stated Paul Fabara, Visa’s chief risk and client services officer. The VAAI Score provides real-time risk assessments, empowering issuers to make informed decisions about blocking potentially fraudulent transactions.

In 2023 alone, Visa successfully blocked $40 billion in fraudulent payments, but the company is committed to enhancing its defenses. The new AI tool is designed to learn the transaction patterns of cardholders, differentiating between normal and abnormal spending behavior. Within approximately four milliseconds, it assigns a risk score based on the likelihood of fraud, effectively flagging transactions that may indicate an ongoing enumeration attack.

This AI-driven tool was trained on a vast dataset of over 15 billion transactions, allowing it to generate a risk score by comparing current transactions against established enumeration patterns. As a result, the model is adept at predicting the probability that a given purchase is part of an enumeration attack. Remarkably, this innovative tool has reduced false positive fraud detection rates by 85% relative to traditional risk models, a significant advancement for fraud prevention.

Initially available to financial institutions in the United States, the VAAI tool reflects Visa's proactive approach to fraud prevention. “With access to advanced technology, fraudsters are able to monetize stolen credentials more rapidly than ever before,” said Michael Jabbara, Visa’s global head of fraud services. “Enumerated transactions affect the entire financial ecosystem, and the VAAI Score equips our clients with a sophisticated tool to safeguard cardholder accounts and prevent fraudulent transactions before they occur.”

Incorporating generative AI into fraud detection represents a transformation in how financial institutions can respond to and mitigate risks. By focusing on real-time analysis and advanced machine learning, Visa is not only enhancing its fraud prevention capabilities but also bolstering consumer confidence in the security of digital transactions.