iovation Study Finds 68% of North American Financial Institutions Plan to Invest in Machine Learning to Help Combat Fraud

PORTLAND, OR--(Marketwired - Oct 3, 2017) - iovation, the leading provider of device-based consumer authentication and fraud prevention solutions, today released insights from its latest report conducted in partnership with global research and advisory firm Aite Group, "Machine Learning: Fraud is Now a Competitive Issue". The study centers on the progress toward using machine learning (ML) analytics for improving fraud mitigation and customer experience. Findings showed that while 68 percent of Financial Institutions (FIs) cite ML analytics as a high priority investment over the next few years the path to adoption will not be without its challenges. iovation and Aite Group will be hosting a webinar at 10AM PST on November 9^th to discuss the results of the survey.

It's clear that the threat environment continues to escalate, and effective fraud prevention is an increasingly competitive issue for FIs. Organized crime rings, armed with billions of stolen data records, are targeting the financial services industry with sophisticated card fraud, application fraud, account take-over (ATO) attacks, wholesale ATO and the specter of faster payments, all of which were cited among the top pain points for FIs today in the Aite research.

"What this study highlighted is that those who are early adopters of advanced machine learning analytics will be able to greatly reduce fraud while also improving the customer experience, giving those FIs a decided edge over their competitors who lag in these advancements," said Julie Conroy, Research Director for Aite Group's Retail Banking & Payments practice and author of the report. "Data is the new currency, and creating intelligence from data at scale requires machine learning technology."

With the omni-channel approach to consumer engagement there are several points of interaction (ATMs, call centers, email, etc.), for hackers to gain access to personal data. In fact, cross-channel fraud was mentioned throughout the interviews with fraud and analytics executives as a key attack vector. All of this points to why FIs must embrace machine learning analytics to spot patterns and holistically prevent fraud at each point of contact with stronger yet more convenient authentication measures, which will ultimately improve the customer experience.