HSBC introduces new technologies to fight against fraud

HSBC has announced that it will be introducing technology to screen all card transactions in order to protect against potential fraud. The bank plans to use technology from SAS.

According to Apacs total card fraud losses in the first half of 2008 had increased by 14 per cent against the same period of 2007 and made up £301.7m, the number of skimmed or cloned cards increased by 22 per cent, and online banking fraud rose by 185 per cent to make £21.4m.

There are different opinions about the new system being introduced by HSBS: some specialist claim additional checks will cause irritation for customers, others argue it is necessary for financial institutions to decrease the cost of card fraud. There are also such opinions as the most important tool of protecting against fraud is having “a good investigative and forensics group.”

Matthew Tyler, director of consultancy Evolution Security Systems, noted another side of the introduction, that as fraud detection systems become more complex, the likelihood of false positives also increases. He added, "but in most cases these 'failed' transactions can be handled at the call centre level and will only enhance public perception of the 'security focus' of the banks."