AI, predictive analytics, consortium data at forefront of fraud fight, says SAS on Fraud Week

Educational webinars, new IP and customer successes heralded for International Fraud Awareness Week

Though the exact toll is immeasurable, fraud losses drain about 5% of a typical organization’s annual revenues, estimates the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE). Applied to last year’s gross world product of $84.84 trillion, that equals an astounding $4.24 trillion stolen, swindled or otherwise usurped in 2018 – the equivalent of $11.6 billion looted from the global economy each day.

To spotlight the critical role of anti-fraud technology, analytics leader SAS sponsors International Fraud Awareness Week, Nov. 17-23. The ACFE-led campaign aims to reduce the immense business and personal impacts of this criminal pandemic through awareness and education, including these live and on-demand webinars:

• One Step Ahead: Fight Fraudsters With Cutting-Edge Technology, Tuesday, Nov. 19 at 11 a.m. ET. Hosted by SAS with Intel and Capgemini, ACFE President and CEO Bruce Dorris will moderate a panel of experts exploring anticipated trends, challenges and best practices for integrating anti-fraud technologies.
• Managing Risk in the Age of Fraud, Friday, Nov. 22 at 3 p.m. ET. Exclusive to ACFE members, this webinar will convene FinServ fraud experts from SAS alongside Mary Ann Miller, Head of Fraud Strategy at Varo Money; and Frank McKenna, author of the blog Frank on Fraud, and co-founder and Chief Fraud Strategist of PointPredictive. Topics include 2020’s top fraud trends and the vital importance of artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics to drive digital transformation.

“As crooks find new ways to misuse technology and target potential victims, SAS arms banks, insurers, government agencies and health care organizations with advanced analytics to foil their exploits,” said Stu Bradley, Vice President of Fraud and Security Intelligence at SAS. "SAS solutions deliver a holistic view of fraud risk along with predictive capabilities and AI to help protect against evolving threats, both known and unknown.”

SAS readies launch of new digital identity and authentication offering

As digital transformation accelerates, the matter of identity and authentication has emerged among the most pressing fraud issues. Is the person transacting on the other side of that computer or smart device who they claim to be? Banks, insurers, telecommunications firms and retailers have mere seconds to answer that question, even as online identities have become more malleable and spoofable than ever.

SAS^® Identity Enrichment and Assessment will soon debut as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering. Powered by SAS Analytics, it harnesses the deep intelligence of consortium data – identity data crowdsourced from multiple providers – to deliver rapid, centralized authentication of digital users.

“Companies struggle with authentication measures and strategies across enterprises, knowing they must somehow strike that critical balance between security and customer convenience,” said SAS’ Bradley. “Foundational to fraud prevention is an understanding of true identity. SAS will help deliver just that through decisioning on multi-spectrum data from industry-leading providers inclusive of digital identity, biometrics, telephony data, public records, fraud scoring and more.”

The forthcoming offering is just the latest in an arsenal of fraud-fighting analytics solutions helping SAS customers outpace the bad guys.

Thai bank protects customers while detecting suspicious activity in real time

Credit card fraud is a rampant problem in Thailand, climbing 20% annually in the region and costing the industry about US$400 million each year. To better combat rising digital threats, Bangkok-based Krungsri Consumer, a subsidiary of Bank of Ayudah, the country’s fifth-largest bank, recently replaced its 15-year-old fraud monitoring system with SAS Fraud Management. The new platform empowers Krungsri to monitor credit card transactions for suspicious behavior in real time using analytics and machine learning. The benefits were quickly apparent.

“SAS helped us reduce case alert volume by 40%, improve our fraud detection rate by 35% and reduce false positives by 18%,” said Pramote Lalitkitti, Senior Vice President of Fraud Management at Krungsri Consumer. “Senior management is happy because we’ve reduced the time needed for each case and improved the productivity of our fraud monitoring team.”

Detecting fraud, waste and abuse in prescription drug claims

Health care fraud costs insurers between $70 billion and $234 billion each year. Prime Therapeutics is fighting back with an initiative that saved the 23 Blue Cross Blue Shield plans it serves $279 million in the first year.

Last fall, Prime became the first pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) to integrate pharmacy and medical drug claims with medical service data in a comprehensive anti-fraud platform. Prime’s new SAS platform delivers a holistic, total drug management view: data from members, prescribers and pharmacies, fully integrated together. That complete data picture combined with the platform’s robust AI and machine learning capabilities enables Prime to detect fraud, waste and abuse (FWA) regardless of cause or source.

“While many PBMs and health plans have facets of these data, it is the integration of the data – and the complete picture it creates – that powered our early success,” said Jo-Ellen Abou Nader, Vice President of FWA and Supply Chain Optimization at Prime. “In 2019 alone, Prime investigators referred 721 cases involving activities by doctors, patients and pharmacies to payers based on insights from the SAS platform and our new approach to detection and prevention.”

Learn more about SAS fraud and security intelligence solutions, and follow #fraudweek on Twitter to join the conversation online.