Worldline [Euronext: WLN], a global leader in payment services, and Febelfin recently presented the latest trends in payment fraud. During an information session, Febelfin revealed key figures from its latest report on fraud in Belgium, highlighting the most common forms of fraud and their impact on consumers. Worldline discussed the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) in strengthening transaction security and presented its innovative solutions to proactively combat fraud on a daily basis.

In its report, Febelfin presents the latest figures on fraud in Belgium and highlights key trends. Phishing remains a popular fraud technique and accounts for the majority of fraud cases. Last year, cybercriminals managed to steal more than 40 million euros in Belgium via this method. ‘These figures show how phishing remains a major threat to Belgian consumers,’ said Isabelle Marchand, spokeswoman for Febelfin. ‘Fraudsters abuse people's trust to gain access to their personal information. In this context, it is essential to remind consumers that Card Stop will never ask for a card number, expiry date, security code or other sensitive information by phone, SMS or e-mail. Nor will any bank or Worldline, the operator of Card Stop, ask for this kind of information.’

Despite efforts to raise awareness around fraud, phishing fraud remained widespread in 2023, with cybercriminals sending mass messages pretending to be family or a trusted organisation. Almost 55% of Belgians have received at least one phishing message this year, and 8% of them have been victims of this type of scam in the past.

In addition to traditional phishing scams aimed at extracting personal data, new forms of AI fraud are also emerging and appear to be creating victims. In this context, two main variants of particular concern have been identified: investment fraud, in which cybercriminals pose as a bank help service and make attractive offers to convince their victims to invest in fictitious financial products; and CEO fraud, in which an employee poses as a company director asking to make a bank transfer.

At the same time, fraud methods are evolving and becoming more complex, with increasingly sophisticated tools such as, for example, deepfake, which generates videos and synthesised voices to impersonate trusted individuals. Moreover, phishing attacks are becoming increasingly targeted: instead of mass campaigns, scammers personalise their messages based on personal information gathered through social networks.

In a market where fraudsters are becoming increasingly inventive and their tactics are constantly evolving, AI continues to emerge as a powerful weapon in the fight against fraud.

The payment industry has been using AI for years in a number of products and business processes. Worldline, for example, uses the power of AI to supplement traditional detection rules to provide its customers - banks and merchants - with a reliable and effective defence against digital security threats. ‘Today, we need to use AI to counter AI,’ explains Myles Simpson, Fraud Risk Manager in Business Development at Worldline. ‘Thanks to AI, we can analyse millions of transactions in real time and detect complex fraud patterns with impressive speed and accuracy. As a result of these advances, our AI-powered anti-fraud solutions can detect fraudulent activity in as little as 11 milliseconds and reduce the number of false positives - where legitimate transactions are mistakenly considered fraudulent - by up to 85%.’

At Worldline, the use of AI in the fight against payment fraud is based on a combination of two complementary solutions: Worldline Payment Fraud Management and Worldline Digital Security Suite.

The first solution is Payment Fraud Management, which continuously monitors all sensitive transactions on a bank account whether they are card payments, transfers or other forms of sensitive transactions. High-risk transactions are identified and processed as quickly and efficiently as possible, while detection rules are constantly improved to prevent new attacks.

At the same time, Digital Security Suite reinforces this approach by focusing on device analysis. It assesses in real time to detect abnormalities: does the device pose a risk? Is it linked to a particular user? Does the user's behaviour match their usual behaviour? By analysing account holder habits, it continuously identifies new fraud patterns and quickly blocks malicious access attempts. This technology, which won the international PayTech Award, exemplifies Worldline's advances in security and online threat prevention.

Claire Deprez, Head of Product Management at Worldline added: ‘Continuous monitoring at every stage of the purchasing process allows us to intervene even before fraud occurs, giving our customers better protection.’ Indeed, the integration of AI allows Worldline to effectively defend against various forms of fraud, such as phishing and identity theft. ‘Thanks to AI, we have been able to increase our ability to prevent fraud by around 30%.‘

Developments in AI have potential and offer new possibilities that will make shopping and payment even easier and more secure, while protecting consumers as much as possible.