Volt Bank adopts IBM fraud protection solution

Volt Bank has integrated IBM’s Safer Payments solution – delivered in partnership with Australian software company ISW – into its online banking platform to protect its users and identify potential fraud.

The real-time payment fraud monitoring platform aims to help financial institutions improve fraud detection and reduce false positives. 

The solution utilises artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyse behavioural and fraudulent patterns, which in turn can help banks build and adapt predictive models of emerging fraud threats and recommend countermeasures. 

By feeding in financial data, customer transaction history and other non-financial data, the system learns behaviours and can flag potentially fraudulent transactions, allowing them to be stopped or put on hold pending further validation.

“Online and mobile payment practices have made fraud detection much more challenging,” said Steve Weston, CEO and co-founder of Volt.

“Response times of payment service providers are shrinking due to real-time payments, which is then reducing the window to detect fraudulent activity. Banks that can prevent losses while also avoiding incorrectly classifying genuine payments as fraud can realise and enjoy a competitive advantage.”

He continued: “This partnership is another demonstration of Volt’s dedication to providing its customers with best-in-class safety and security features offered through leading providers like IBM and ISW.”

Katrina Troughton, the managing director of IBM ANZ, added: “With financial crime becoming increasingly sophisticated in Australia, banks are facing the challenge of meeting their customers’ evolving expectations for a frictionless transaction, while also ensuring their security.

“IBM enables them to address these security concerns while still offering top quality experiences for customers and allowing for future growth.” 

Likewise, ISW financial lead Bo Mabry said: “Like any true neobank, Volt relies on agility and flexibility to build a foundation that will rapidly scale. Hosting the IBM Safer Payments software on the ISW platform-as-a-service model enables just that.”

[Related: Banks will need to change the way they assess risk: Volt CEO]