Call-based contact center fraudulent activities— taking over accounts, stealing identities, etc.—have become a lucrative business for the bad guys. In fact, global identity theft alone has been estimated by security firm McAfee to have cost over $500 billion a year.
As a result, stopping the barbarians from storming the gates and working their mischief as become a top priority for enterprise contact centers of all sizes around the world. This is not just because of the money lost but also the trust lost and damage to enterprises’ brands.
The trick in mitigation of the risks of contact center fraud starts with very early detection of fraudsters when they call. As with all security challenges, the answer is that when it comes to protection it starts with detection and the sooner the better to prevent attacks or remediate them ASAP. It is why the announcement from NICE Systems of the launch of its Real-Time Fraud Prevention solution is of interest.
The solution enables contact centers to detect and prevent fraud in real time using voice biometrics and both speech and desktop analytics. It instantly identifies 90 percent of fraudulent callers in the first few seconds of a call, enabling organizations to quickly investigate unauthorized transactions before they are completed.
"Not only is the contact center a critical enabler to fraud schemes, it has suffered significantly from lack of investment in fraud prevention tools," said Shirley Inscoe, Senior Analyst, Aite Group. "That's because money doesn't often leave the building via the contact center. But without the contact center as an enabler, many fraud schemes would not be successful. Therefore, there is a real need in the market for solutions that stop fraud in real time via the voice channel."
NICE is promoting the benefits of its fraud prevention solution as not only providing rapid identification of bad actors but doing so with a light touch in terms of other contact center functions. It notes that: “This helps companies significantly reduce fraud losses, improve the operational efficiency of fraud investigation teams, and achieve higher retention rates by enhancing customer protection.”
Catching the bad guys in real-time
This is a comprehensive solution that provides:
The solution is powered by the NICE Engage Platform and uses advanced real-time streaming and analytics to check every incoming call against a fraudster watch list and detect if the caller is a known fraudster. If a call is determined to be high-risk, the agent is immediately informed and guided in real time to appropriately handle the interaction. All high-risk interactions are also sent for further investigation via the NICE Actimize Enterprise Risk Case Manager as part of the full fraud case management lifecycle.
In addition, the new solution complements NICE's Real-Time Authentication offering for fast voice-based authentication.
"NICE is committed to leading the market's adoption of real-time applications and capabilities that bring organizations significant business value," said Miki Migdal, President of the NICE Enterprise Product Group. "The NICE Real-Time Fraud Prevention solution leverages NICE's unique technology to deliver a solution that enables organizations to prevent fraudulent activity in real time, at the level of the contact center interaction."
Given what is a stake when fraudsters attack such a critical place for compromising systems with access to incredibly valuable information, having real-time visibility to separate the good customers from the bad has never been more critical. Indeed, being able to not allow them through the door as the NICE solution demonstrates can be very valuable to say the least.