A powerful new Artificial Intelligence-driven anti-fraud capability designed to stop online crooks in their tracks was today switched on by Australia’s sovereign domestic debit payments scheme, eftpos, as the organisation doubles on security smarts to help level the battlefield for consumers, merchants and crime fighters.
eftpos CEO, Mr Stephen Benton, said the shift to AI-driven predictive fraud scoring is a crucial milestone in the evolution of Australia’s digital payments ecosystem and brings to life features designed to keep Australians safe in the Digital Economy.
eftpos’ new sovereign online capability, which includes dedicated Australian anti-fraud measures, follows the Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision in October that Australian banks are expected to offer and promote Least Cost Routing (LCR) in online by the end of 2022.
“This built-for-purpose fraud detection engine uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to bolster security for eCommerce and is part of a $100m eftpos funded a digital upgrade to deliver the next generation of secure payments technology,” Mr Benton said.
“The anti-fraud capability has widespread support from banks and FinTechs across the country and will scale quickly in the Australian market next year to provide real benefits for merchants and consumers as eftpos online market penetration grows.
“eftpos’ extension further into online payments will quickly drive much needed large-scale competition and place downward pressure on transaction costs. Currently, we are well known as the lowest cost debit payments provider for retailers and small businesses at physical shops, and we want to develop the same reputation in the online environment.”
Mr Benton said eftpos’ security kit bag now included the new security engine, two-factor authentication (3DS), tokenisation, enhanced Disputes and Chargebacks capability and a digital identity solution, connectID.
Before today’s announcement, eftpos was already available online for some Card On File payments where banks have implemented the service for their merchant customers, and Deposits and Withdrawal payments via the Beem It mobile wallet. Since launching the eftpos digital service that enables LCR last year, it has been subject to zero fraud.
eftpos’ new online counter-fraud capability comes as part of a partnership with global leader in financial crime prevention, counter-fraud scoring and integrity intelligence Featurespace, based in Cambridge England, which was co-founded by Australian National University engineering and information technology alumni Dave Excell.
Mr Excell said employing self-learning technology to accurately predict individual behaviour in real-time is the only meaningful way to protect people and organisations from the rising threats of fraud and financial crime.
“We are honoured that eftpos has put their trust in Featurespace to help provide a safe and secure payments environment for Australia’s increasingly digital economy,” Mr Excell said.