News

Credit card fraud: instant text to you if someone else uses your card - 3GSM demo looms

Your credit card has been borrowed, but you don't know it. Mastercard does - it has sophisticated fraud detection - and it is trying to get hold of you to say: "Did you really buy 400 tonnes of pickles in Bangkok?" - but until they linked up with SMS specialists at mBlox, it could take a day before they found you.

Now, it's going to be instant, via text - and the system will be launched at next week's 3GSM show in Cannes.

"We're bringing SMS into the world of fraud prevention, at the turn of a key," Johan Gerber told NewsWireless today. Gerber is Associate Vice President, Risk Products at MasterCard, and he's been on the joint project with mBlox which will save the card companies - and the banks - huge sums.

The problem they face, especially in days of world-wide Internet purchases online, is that they can be pretty suspicious about an "out of pattern" transaction, but they can't actually cancel it on your behalf until you say: "No, I am allergic to pickles and wouldn't buy a single jar!" and authorise a stop on your card.

"Today, the software picks up on fraud. We scan transactions in real time, as they happen, and identify out of pattern purchases - that's normal for most banks and we have used it in 47 banks around the world. But the problem is that normally, it has to be handled by a call centre."

The call centre has a large staff of analysts who call people up and ask them whether the transaction is valid. But they can only call one person each at a time; it can easily take an hour or even a day before they manage to get connected and put the stop order on the card.

The SMS can go out to every account with suspect transactions simultaneously, without waiting for the analysts to work their way through the list, and of course, the reply can be as quick as the user can reply. "Instead of my bank having to make 100 calls, the customer calls the bank," said Gerber.

The system should be quicker than standard SMS. mBlox has its on SMS equipment and even if there is a log-jam on the normal text server (because of a football match or a Valentine or New Year flood of messages) you should get the text: "Thank you for using your Big Spender card to buy Pickles in Thailand! - any problems, call this number." The message is generated automatically according to rules set up by the bank.

"It's the first global fraud detection and prevention system," said Gerber. It really will work anywhere you can receive a text, he says. But there is the option for the user of saying: "in case of fraud, email me" which may be more suitable for mobile email users like Blackberry owners or Smartner clients.

Full details of the announcement are given in the press release