BROOKFIELD, Wis.–Fiserv said it has introduced two enhanced consumer authentication solutions, step-up authentication and identity verification, to mitigate card fraud within call centers.
“Step-up authentication expands beyond knowledge-based consumer authentication that can be vulnerable to fraud, using a five-digit code via text or email valid only during the call,” the company said. “New for Fiserv credit clients, identity verification provides real-time analysis that triggers protective actions to help mitigate account takeover, evaluating high-risk cardholder behavior within the interactive voice response (IVR) system.”
The company added that layered, multi-factor authentication establishes the identity of the caller and passes information downstream to other fraud applications.
“Personally identifiable information has become easier to find and exploit online due to the ubiquity of social media, and call center fraud has been increasing each year,” said Patrick Davie, vice president, Product Strategy, Card Services, Fiserv. “With these two solutions, fraud exposure for financial institutions can be reduced, cardholders’ personal data is safeguarded and account takeover can be prevented before transactions at the point of sale occur.”
Fiserv pointed to some growing trends in fraud that it said reflect evolving methods with financial institutions and their consumers paying the price. Overall fraud hit a three-year high of $16.8 billion in 2017, and the mean consumer cost of fraud more than doubled from 2016 to 2017, reaching $102 per incident, the company noted.
In 2017, account takeover losses in the United States totaled $5.1 billion, tripling over 2016. Fiserv said consumers increasingly consider their financial institutions to be the party most responsible for safeguarding them against fraud, according to Javelin’s 2018 Identity Fraud report.
Fiserv said hundreds of its clients participated in the initial five-month step-up authentication pilot, which has seen more than $2 million in fraud savings due to enhanced customer authentication. Identity verification, released to Fiserv clients in the second quarter, successfully identified a subset of calls to be fraudulent.