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    How SAS Analytics Protect Your Finances

    icon-user Laura Pourinski icon-comments Comments August 3, 2020

    With the New Year, now is a great time for consumers and businesses to think about protecting their financial data. North Carolina-based SAS is one of the analytics companies that businesses turn to, to stay ahead of fraud and security threats. Banking Fraud Solutions Manager at SAS, Ian Holmes, spoke to RewardExpert about some of his company’s products that help keep banks, merchants and consumers safe. 

    “SAS provides real-time decisioning solutions that enable financial institutions to make very accurate approve, deny or defer decisions for payment transactions,” said Holmes. Those decisions are powered by SAS’s big data analytics architecture, artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques.

    Cutting-edge Technology to Fight Fraud

    If a criminal swipes a credit card number, it can be a major headache for both the cardholder and the bank. The fraudulent activity can end up costing a bank thousands of dollars. But SAS has cutting-edge technology designed to prevent the fraud from occurring in the first place.

    “SAS uses profiling as unique as a signature to understand typical customer behaviors in order to detect anomalies that might signal the work of a fraudster,” said Holmes. “SAS can identify variances in a spectrum of parameters in real-time, helping surface suspicious activity to your bank while helping ensure legitimate purchases are approved.”

    SAS is the leader in analytics
    Through innovative analytics, business intelligence and data management software, SAS helps customers make better decisions

    For transactions that are very unusual, SAS uses patented machine learning techniques to create models to figure out whether the transaction is legitimate or fraudulent. “The predictive models assess how the current transaction looks in comparison to a customer’s historical spending as well as that of peers,” he said. “For example, is the customer spending more due to an upcoming holiday or does that transaction signal a fraudulent attempt?”

    Instant Notification

    If a fraudulent transaction occurs on a credit card, SAS has automation tools to make sure customers are notified instantly and can minimize any damage to their finances and credit rating. “Imagine being able to send the cardholder a text alert when a suspicious transaction is identified. The cardholder can quickly respond to prevent further transactions,” said Holmes.

    Besides protecting the consumer, SAS also has tools that can help financial institutions lessen the financial impact after fraud has occurred.  “With SAS, they can administer their own hot lists as they review transactions and confirm risk identifiers or block new tester merchants or the countries and regions where there is a spike in fraud,” explained Holmes. “Empowering those on the front line to stop fraud elevates the level of protection.”

    Protecting E-Commerce Purchases

    As more and more retail transactions take place online and on mobile devices, SAS has transformed its offerings to protect customers on mobile payment platforms, so customers can have peace of mind when using mobile payments. This includes mobile wallet protection on services such as Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Venmo.

    “Financial institutions can easily configure and adapt fraud detection strategies based on emerging fraud trends that arise from fintech transactions, and they become part of the real-time decisioning algorithms used by the financial institution,” said Holmes.

    SAS transforms your data into insights that give you a fresh perspective on your business
    SAS transforms your data into insights that give you a fresh perspective on your business

    Streamlining Success

    Another benefit to using SAS tools is that they allow banks to streamline their operations, which can ultimately lead to savings being passed on to the consumer. The application of machine learning techniques can lead a bank to focus on its highest risk factors and stop wasting time and resources on threats that are not as pressing. “Better and faster identification of fraud leads to reduced operational overhead and happier customers,” stated Holmes.

    The company also offers a variety of in-depth learning materials on its website. These resources provide a wealth of information to financial institutions allowing them to stay up-to-date on the most current technology and protect themselves and you from fraud. For more information, check out SAS.com.

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