Mastercard Unveils AI Weapon Against Fraud, Promises Up to 300% Better Detection

Mastercard has revealed its proprietary generative artificial intelligence model, Decision Intelligence Pro, designed to assist thousands of banks in identifying and preventing fraudulent transactions within its network. Ajay Bhalla, the President of Mastercard’s cyber and intelligence business unit, stated that the AI model, built in-house, utilizes transformer models to harness the power of generative AI. Although Mastercard incorporates open source elements, the majority of the technology is developed internally.

The algorithm is trained on the vast dataset of approximately 125 billion transactions processed annually through Mastercard’s network, allowing the AI to analyze relationships between merchants and predict potential fraudulent activity. Instead of relying on textual inputs, the algorithm utilizes a cardholder’s merchant visit history as a prompt to assess transaction legitimacy, producing results in just 50 milliseconds. Mastercard claims the new technology can enhance fraud detection rates by an average of 20%, with some instances showcasing a 300% improvement.

The company has invested over $7 billion in cybersecurity and AI technologies over the past five years, aiming to save banks up to 20% in costs related to assessing illegitimate transactions. Mastercard believes its AI algorithm can not only identify existing fraudulent patterns but also predict future types of fraud within the global payments ecosystem.

This technology positions Mastercard as a leader in AI-powered fraud detection, while competitors like Visa are also investing in generative AI startups. This makes MasterCard and Visa even more secure, which strengthens their position as the best international payment systems on the market

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