Barclaycard Payments Partners With Kount to Deliver Industry-Leading Fraud Prevention and Prepare Businesses for Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)

Kount’s advanced fraud prevention uses adaptive AI and machine learning combined with the Identity Trust Global Network to protect businesses from chargebacks and false positives

The real-time fraud screening and risk analysis also helps businesses better prepare for SCA by allowing them to take advantage of ‘TRA’ exemptions

Barclaycard Payments, which processes almost 40 per cent of card transactions in the UK, has announced a new partnership with leading fraud prevention provider Kount to give Barclays Transact customers access to award-winning fraud detection software.

Barclays Transact is a suite of tools designed to help merchants make their online transactions both simpler and safer.

Transact’s new fraud module, powered by Kount, uses complex data linking within the Identity Trust Global Network and artificial intelligence algorithms to detect fraudulent transactions in real-time, at the point of check-out, helping protect the business from false positives and chargebacks.

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Kount is the only fraud prevention system with the Identity Trust Global Network, the largest network of trust and risk signals, which is comprised of 32 billion annual interactions from more than 6,500 customers across 75+ industries. Kount’s AI utilizes both supervised and unsupervised machine learning to detect emerging and existing complex fraud. Kount’s customers have reported results such as a 99 percent reduction in chargebacks, 70 percent reduction in false positives, and an 83 percent reduction in manual reviews.

The fraud module can also help businesses better prepare for the introduction of the EU’s Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) regulation, which aims to tackle growing rates of fraud and cybercrime. SCA requires that all EEA transactions go through a two-factor authentication process, unless they qualify for an exemption. One consequence of this regulation is that the authentication process will introduce a degree of friction into the shopper journey, which may result in an increase in cart abandonment, and ultimately in lost revenue for retailers.

“The Kount and Barclaycard Payments partnership is a mutually beneficial relationship.  Barclaycard Payments gains access to Kount’s Identity Trust Global Network to bring insights and protection to its global merchants, especially those in Europe requiring PSD2 and SCA support. Kount broadens its global visibility with a significant increase in UK card transactions,” said David Mattei, Senior Analyst at Aite Group.  “The real winners are merchants using Barclays Transact for advanced AI-driven fraud mitigation and prevention.”

Transact’s fraud module can help businesses overcome this friction by taking advantage of SCA-approved Transaction Risk Assessment (TRA) exemptions – which is where transactions are judged to be sufficiently genuine, and therefore allowed to skip the two-factor authentication process up to pre-agreed thresholds.

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With Kount’s state-of-the-art fraud analysis, all transactions are analyzed in real time and scored on a spectrum of low to high risk. The merchant’s gateway then uses this score to identify the transactions which qualify for TRA exemptions. This results in a more frictionless payment journey and a faster checkout experience for customers, ultimately resulting in lower levels of basket abandonment and increased sales. Higher-risk transactions requiring further inspection will still go through two-factor authentication, or be immediately declined, in accordance with the regulation and customer risk appetite.

Brad Wiskirchen, CEO, Kount said: “The eCommerce environment is rapidly growing and changing. This partnership between Barclycard and Kount brings together both stability and innovation to provide merchants with an innovative solution to combat emerging fraud strategies while providing a seamless payment experience for customers. Barclays Transact and Kount’s Identity Trust Global network operate together to deliver a top of the line customer experience. By leaving fraud prevention and regulation management up to the experts, businesses can focus on what they do best.”

David Jeffrey, Director of Product, Barclaycard Payments said: “We are really excited to be partnering with Kount, because they share our goal of collaborative innovation, and a drive to deliver best-in-class shopper experiences. Thanks to Kount’s award-winning fraud detection software, the new module will not only help customers to fight fraud and prevent unwanted chargebacks, it will also help them to maximize sales, improve customer experience, and better prepare for the introduction of SCA.”

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