TechBytes with Carol Hamilton, Regional Director EMEAA Compliance and Fraud Solution at GBG

Tell us about your role/team at GBG?

I am responsible for the Fraud and Compliance business across EMEAA at GBG, the global Identity Data intelligence Specialist. I have an International team that provides expertise to our customers, helping solve their fraud and compliance challenges. The team also delivers our solutions to customers ensuring they drive value and support a smooth client journey.

What is GBG? How is it different from other Identity Data Intelligence companies?

GBG helps 19,000 organizations across the globe to interact simply, safely and securely with their customers. With 30 years’ heritage in technology and data, our Identity data intelligence enables businesses to quickly validate and verify the identity and location of their customers and detect and prevent fraud.

By connecting together, a vast, unparalleled ecosystem of information with cutting-edge approaches like Machine Learning, Data Triangulation, Geolocation, and Predictive Analytics, we create ‘frictionless trust’ in the new economy – something that is now central to commerce around the world, every day. That, combined with our deep areas of expertise in location, identity and fraud, and compliance, is why admired brands like HSBC, Revolut, ASOS, and Airbnb choose to work with GBG.

Tell us about GBG’s Fraud expertise.

GBG helps organizations embrace a wealth of data and emerging technologies in the fight against fraud, with the goal of protecting their business and customers. When it comes to fraud, some change has been constant and predictable: more fraud, more complexity, and more attack vectors. What’s changing is how technology can support those defenses – more specifically, how data can be used to support those defenses.

GBG delivers value to its customers by being at the forefront of decision making, relating to both the validity of identity and the trustworthiness and risk posed by that identity. Our end-to-end platform connects data points from a variety of sources such as user, device, activity, location and other meta data, to determine risk propensity; customers use different modules in the platform to tackle real-world problems such as onboarding and application fraud, transactional fraud and monitoring.

We focus on stopping ‘bad actors’ and flagging risk, but without compromising a smooth client journey. This is GBG’s ‘frictionless trust’ expertise, in action.

What different technologies do you use at GBG for fraud prevention?

As mentioned, we use a combination of sophisticated rules engines and advanced analytics (including Machine Learning, a subset of Artificial Intelligence) in our solutions. On top of that, we use Orchestration technology, which creates the ability to efficiently and effortlessly arrange the use of all available data through one layer. This approach enables better-informed decisions and as a result, greater business insights at scale.

At onboarding, for example, it means not just taking the information given at face value, but pre-emptively using additional data sources to verify identity and cross-check whether this person or entity has committed fraud elsewhere. The data orchestration brings improved security and gives better accuracy to fraud detection and prevention efforts.

How do you keep up with customers’ trust?

It’s true that trust is more important than ever, to the economy. At GBG we believe that the solution is symbiotic: a safe and secure business ensures a safe and secure service to the end-user. When fraudsters strike, everyone suffers – even with commercial fraud that might appear to only directly impact the organization.

White-collar fraud hurts businesses, their value chain and their industry as a whole, driving up the cost of doing business and the cost of consumption for the end-customer. One well-publicized example here is insurance fraud – which costs the UK £3bn a year and adds an extra £44 a year to every UK household’s insurance bill. Clearly, to protect citizens, organizations must learn how to protect themselves, using the right approaches and technologies to detect, prevent and investigate fraud.

Combining our expertise across three key pillars: location intelligence, identity, and fraud, the GBG approach goes beyond the constraints of traditional identity verification as tick-box compliance by using the new tools at our disposal to reinvent onboarding and login processes for customers.

What procedures do you follow after you encounter a fraud risk?

This is customer dependent, as our job is to put the potential fraud risks in front of the right people to investigate, with ample time to react. It’s then down to our customers’ investigators and processes to determine the next steps – but they could include intervention on an account or transaction, for example, or flagging it in a Suspicious Activity Report.

As a woman leading tech industry, what unique challenges and opportunities did you find in your journey? Who mentored you in this role?

Definitely having various opportunities to meet and work with talented people. In my role, it’s incredibly important to stay ahead of constantly developing fraudsters so I work with the brightest minds around the industry to test and research various technologies and deliver effective fraud solutions internally.

One of my key mentors was an incredibly successful man who never seemed to take note of my gender. Instead, he preached about taking others along with you to the top. I firmly believe this to be true.

What message do you have for other women professionals in the Technology industry?

Women are regularly underrepresented in a room, that’s for sure. Unfortunately, the technology industry is still very male-dominated. However, my approach is to embrace the spotlight that’s on me and drive positive change rather than be threatened by it. Times are changing and there are more and more opportunities for women and whilst we still have a way to go before board equality, one of the biggest threats can be our own fears as females. The good news is that this is something everyone can learn to control and a ‘fearless’, not reckless, attitude will take you far.

Finally, it is important to support and inspire other women through your actions, and by giving your time and advice when possible. I mentor a number of young women in the industry on a one-on-one basis and this experience is not only rewarding but it also shapes me as a leader.