MasterCard doubles down on AI

MasterCard has announced plans to acquire its long-time partner Brighterion, an artificial intelligence software company specialising in AI-enhanced security.

AI is playing an increasingly important role in providing both customer convenience and robust security. By delivering deeper insight into transactions (at a rate of several thousand per second), AI is helping companies like MasterCard make more accurate real-time fraud decisions – which means fewer illegitimate purchases and fewer card cancellations due to legitimate spending.

Brighterion started providing MasterCard with AI-powered support in 2004, after they demonstrated that their Smart-Agent technology was four times better at detecting fraud with eleven times fewer false positives than MasterCard’s in-house system.

Smart-Agent “learns and tracks the specific behaviours of each entity (cardholder, merchant, device, etc).” By using a variety of techniques in concert, the technology is able to make predictions, inferences, and take real-time decisions.

As well as adopting Brighterion’s technology, MasterCard invested in the company and took a seat on the board in 20014. So, this acquisition represents a natural next step in the coming together of the two businesses. Today, the number of people paying for goods and services across a diverse range of digital and physical payment points, is only increasing. So, we can expect to see more providers looking increasingly to AI to help them keep delivering the high levels of service and security that global consumers expect.