Data-Driven Defense: Discover Global Network Focuses on Brand Integrity

In payments, mitigating fraud and risk is essential.

Fraud is growing, and access to advanced tools helps fraudsters exploit payments vulnerabilities. Companies must prioritize robust defenses to safeguard their operations.

Kate Weiler, director of payment services risk at Discover® Global Network, told PYMNTS that fraudsters use advanced technologies to commit financial crimes worldwide.

“A company’s brand is a critical component that helps to instill consumer confidence — and that’s something that can rapidly diminish in a digital world,” she said.

Fraudsters are everywhere, probing for vulnerabilities in various commerce systems, especially where payments are concerned, she said.

“A brand can be impacted at every interaction, and every engagement with our customers, whether they are account holders, acquiring partners or merchants, can pose risk,” she said.

In the digital world, transactions and various payment types come from all angles, Weiler said. The rise of artificial intelligence also introduces more risk, as fraudsters can harness advanced technologies to launch large-scale attacks or impersonate legitimate people or organizations to catch their victims unaware.

The duty is incumbent on enterprises, payments firms and networks — Discover among them — to ensure compliance, creating a safeguard against criminals, Weiler said. Discover has a brand to protect and needs to instill confidence across its own user base and clients since millions of transactions cross the Discover platform daily.

The Balancing Act

The balancing act between keeping the fraudsters at bay without introducing more friction for merchants and cardholders is tricky, Weiler said, adding that simply declining more transactions is not the easy fix.

For platforms such as Discover Global Network, data offers the best lines of defense against criminals, she said. Data also can be used to understand where transactions are originating and what patterns might be taking shape that warrant further analysis.

She offered an example where a merchant is “set up” as a small clothing shop, but the transaction amounts tied to that business are higher than would be seen with a business in that line of commerce.

Weiler pointed out that the Discover Global Network High Brand Risk program allows the network to obtain incremental data insights from acquiring partners into the merchants that may operate in categories that do indeed pose higher risk.

Without this data and registration by acquirers, she said, “we would lack ability to provide oversight and monitoring of this [high-risk] activity,” such as sports betting. The level of detail extends to geolocation and other specifics, which may be tied to transactions crossing state lines.

By drawing a bead on anomalous transaction trends and other signals, the potential is there to cement the “payments for good” concept, where the Discover Global Network is not being used for criminal means.

Asked by PYMNTS about the roadmap ahead for Discover, Weiler said that managing risk will continue to be the backbone of the company’s efforts, especially as faster and instant payments gain ground. The introduction of a portal for High Brand Risk operations will streamline many of the manual processes that exist for acquirers and merchants, “while getting the data to us faster, with a simpler way of communicating any potential risks,” she said.