It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (for Fraud)

by Guest Contributor 3 min read December 4, 2018

It’s the holiday season — time for jingle bells, lighting candles, shopping sprees and credit card fraud. But we’re prepared. Our risk analyst team constantly monitors our FraudNet solution performance to identify anomalies our clients experience as millions of transactions occur this month.

At its core, FraudNet analyzes incoming events to determine the risk level and to allow legitimate events to process without causing frustrating friction for legitimate customers. That ensures our clients can recognize good customers across digital devices and channels while reducing fraud attacks and the need for internal manual reviews.

But what happens when things don’t go as planned? Here’s a recent example.

One of our banking clients noticed an abnormally high investigation queue after a routine risk engine tuning. Our risk analyst team looked further into the attacks to determine the cause and assess whether it was a tuning issue or a true fraud attack.

After an initial analysis, the team learned that the events shared many of the same characteristics:

  • Came from the same geo location that has been seen in previous attacks on clients
  • Showed suspicious device and browser characteristics that were recognized by Experian’s device identification technology
  • Identified suspicious patterns that have been observed in other recent attacks on banks

The conclusion was that it wasn’t a mistake. FraudNet had correctly identified these transactions as suspicious. Experian® then worked with our client and recommended a strategy to ensure this attack was appropriately managed.

This example highlights the power of device identification technology as a mechanism to detect emerging fraud threats, as well as link analysis tools and the expertise of a highly trained fraud analyst to uncover suspicious events that might otherwise go unnoticed.

In addition to proprietary device intelligence capabilities, our clients take advantage of a suite of capabilities that can further enhance a seamless authentication experience for legitimate customers while increasing fraud detection for bad actors. Using advanced analytics, we can detect patterns and anomalies that may indicate a fraudulent identity is being used. Additionally, through our CrossCore® platform businesses can leverage advanced innovation, such as physical and behavioral biometrics (facial recognition, how a person holds a phone, mouse movements, data entry style), email verification (email tenure, reported fraud on email identities), document verification (autofill, liveliness detection) and digital behavior risk indicators (transaction behavior, transaction velocity), to further advance their existing risk mitigation strategies and efficacy.

With expanding partnerships and capabilities offered via Experian’s CrossCore platform, in conjunction with consultative industry expertise, businesses can be more confident during the authentication process to ensure a superb, frictionless customer experience without compromising security.

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For decades, credit data has given lenders a trusted foundation for assessing risk. Now, consumer-permissioned cash flow data is adding another layer of insight into consumers’ financial lives, including income, spending, liquidity and changing financial obligations. The opportunity is significant. Nearly one in five consumers lacks access to or has damaged credit. New Experian research also shows that 60% of consumers who have previously been denied credit or received less favorable terms than expected believe the outcome would have been different if lenders had considered their recent income and banking activity alongside their credit history. 1,2 For lenders, cash flow insights can provide additional context about a consumer’s financial capacity and support more informed underwriting decisions. The next challenge is making those insights easier to use consistently and responsibly at scale. What are cash flow insights? Cash flow insights are derived from consumer-permissioned banking data and provide visibility into how money moves into and out of a consumer’s accounts. Depending on the information available, cash flow data can provide insight into financial behaviors such as: Income and income stability: Regular and irregular income streams and changes over time Spending and recurring expenses: Everyday spending patterns and ongoing financial obligations Account balances and liquidity: Available funds and changes in account balances Debt obligations: Loan payments and other recurring debt commitments Cash flow patterns: How money moves into and out of accounts over time Traditional credit information provides a rich history of how consumers have managed credit. Cash flow insights add context about their current financial activity and capacity, providing lenders with a more complete view of financial health. Cash flow insights can also add predictive value to risk assessment. Experian analysis shows Cashflow Score can deliver up to a 25% lift in predictive performance over conventional credit scores when tailored to targeted risk tiers.3 How lenders can put cash flow insights to work at scale As interest in cash flow insights grows, the conversation is moving beyond what the data can reveal to how financial institutions can use it consistently and responsibly. That requires standardized consumer reporting, clear governance and decision-ready insights that can work within established lending processes. The launch of Experian Cashflow Data Bureau at Vision 2026 reflects this shift from access to adoption. The new consumer reporting agency operates under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and is designed to help financial institutions adopt consumer-permissioned cash flow insights at scale. A key part of that foundation is the cash flow consumer report, which organizes consumer-permissioned banking information into a standardized consumer report regulated under the FCRA. This gives lenders a consistent foundation for incorporating cash flow information into lending decisions while providing consumers with access to the information in their report. Turning greater visibility into better decisions The next evolution in credit isn’t about choosing between traditional credit and cash flow data. Each provides a different perspective. Traditional credit information offers deep insight into how consumers have managed credit over time. Cash flow insights can add context about financial activity and capacity. Bringing those perspectives together can give lenders greater visibility into consumers’ financial health and help them better distinguish between risk and resilience, support more informed decisions and identify opportunities to responsibly expand access to credit. As cash flow adoption continues to grow, its value will come from how effectively it complements the information lenders already use. The opportunity isn't simply to see more data. It's to turn that additional visibility into smarter, more informed decisions. Explore how Experian Cashflow Data Bureau is helping financial institutions put consumer-permissioned cash flow insights into practice at scale. Learn more [1] Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Market for Credit Building: Demand, Product Characteristics and Consumer Uses, 2026. [2] Experian commissioned Atomik Research to conduct an online survey of 2,000 U.S. adults age 18+. Fieldwork took place July 16–21, 2026. Margin of error: +/- 2.2 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. [3] Based on Experian analysis when Cashflow Score is compared with conventional credit scores, tailored to targeted risk tiers. Predictability based on KS.

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