Payments giant Mastercard is implementing new generative AI (GenAI) technology to help banks combat fraud.

The company said that the technology scans an “unprecedented” one trillion data points to predict whether a transaction is likely to be geninue or not.

Mastercard already uses decision intelligence (DI) technology to safely approve around 125 billion transactions a year.

The GenAI works by assessing the relationships between several entities surrounding a transaction in order to determine its risk.

Mastercard says that in less than 50 milliseconds, this technology improves the overall DI score, "sharpening the data provided to banks".

According to the business, initial modelling shows the AI enhancements boost fraud detection rates on average by 20 per cent and as high as 300 percent in some instances.

“With generative AI we are transforming the speed and accuracy of our anti-fraud solutions, deflecting the efforts of criminals, and protecting banks and their customers," said Ajay Bhalla, president of cyber and intelligence at Mastercard. "Supercharging our algorithm will improve our ability to anticipate the next potential fraudulent event, instilling trust into every interaction.”

The company also said that the move will further mitigate what are known as false positives, or legitimate transactions which are incorrectly flagged as fraudulent ones.

Bhalla continued: “The precision of the solution – achieved by scanning potential points of sale in real time - has been shown in our own analysis to not only increase accuracy, but also reduce the number of false positives by more than 85 per cent."

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