New products for security, credit research

One of the classic parts of a trade journalist’s job is the “deskside.” Traditionally a deskside was, literally, a visit with a reporter at his desk from a banking vendor, consultant, or sometimes even a banker. Nowadays we still receive many live visits, but chances are just as good that the “deskside” will be done by some virtual meeting platform or simply as a conference call.

The result isn’t always a “story” per se, but what we hear during our desksides can be of interest to bankers. Here are summaries of two visits real and virtual we had.

Guardian Analytics: omni-channel fraud prevention

“Customers appreciate it when banks show that they have their customers’ backs,” says Luis Rojas, head of products for Guardian Analytics, Inc., which introduced the rollout of its Omni-Channel Fraud Prevention solution earlier this year. The product integrates fraud prevention and risk tools and databases across multiple banking channels and payments streams, enabling reports and alerts from both Guardian Analytics products and anti-fraud and related packages from other vendors to be pulled together for a unified view of what may be going on with a customer’s account.

Rojas pointed out that a fraud or other threat may arise on multiple channels, which a bank’s fraud analyst can observe, track, and react to on a single dashboard through Guardian’s new service.

For example, in a short space of time there might be a login failure. It could be a forgetful customer. On the other hand, other activity in the same period, such as a multi-factor authentication failure, a password reset, or other moves that are flagged by systems may, singly or taken as a whole, dictate remedial action. A transaction may be put on hold, a customer contacted through a secure means to verify a transaction, or other protective action may be taken. All alerts come together before the bank’s analyst in a color-coded fashion, from green to yellow to red.

Often, Rojas said, the security systems for different bank channels don’t communicate with each other, leading to time-consuming jumping back and forth to monitor a problem. By tying all monitoring together in real time, he said, the omnichannel product “becomes the Rosetta Stone.”

The product is also intended to bring behaviorial analytics, Guardian’s specialty, to bear, moving beyond traditional identity-based approaches to security. While the visual approach described is the company’s first phase, the product will incorporate additional features that provide behavioral data and context across channels, investigative support, and omni-channel risk scoring. Read more

TransUnion: New analytics environment for lenders and more

While Guardian Analytics, above, cites the Rosetta Stone, we moved from Ancient Egyptian to Sanskrit in learning about TransUnion’s launch of Prama.

Prama takes its branding from an ancient word, Pram, or Pramiti, which translates to “the source of accurate and valid knowledge about the world.” Prama, which is service marked, is intended to be just that, a family of tools with which creditors and other users of consumer financial data will be able to better utilize the growing body of information we all generate. Prama, under continuing development, will not only look at the traditional credit data captured by TransUnion, but also alternative data and more. Alternative data can include nontraditional factors that can be analyzed to judge creditworthiness for “thin-file” or “no-file” consumers who wish to borrow. This can include data on how a consumer handles their checking account, their rent payments, and utility bills.

Prama begins with TransUnion’s credit data and will be augmented further over time. The two initial parts of Prama are Prama Insights and Prama Studio.

Prama Insights has been launched with the first two modules:

• Vintage Analysis, oriented toward credit monitoring and forecasting, as well as marketing and calculating consumer credit profitability.

• Market Insights, designed to help lenders to identify and analyze key credit metrics and trends at the state, regional, and national levels.

Prama Studio will enable companies to upload their own data for comparison and analysis. The aim is more successful decisions and product development.

Beyond expanding financial institutions’ analytical toolsets, the new product is intended to make analysis much faster, according to Steve Chaouki, executive vice-president and TransUnion’s financial services business unit. He explained that Prama began as an internal tool at TransUnion and is now being rolled out to the company’s clients. Banks of all sizes are expected to be able to use the product. Read more