US credit unions test out new anti-fraud technology

‘It is CO-OP’s job to make sure that our clients have access to the best technology to combat fraud and protect their members’

Four credit unions in the USA are taking part in a pilot scheme for a data-driven fraud mitigation tool developed by CO-OP Financial Services.

The Cooper Fraud Analyzer, announced by CO-OP at the Think 18 conference in May, is an account-based risk management solution that uses rules and decisioning to instantly identify fraudulent transactions.

It looks for common fraud scenarios in the account-based environment, such as new account fraud, in-branch teller fraud and fraudulent check deposits. The system evaluates data like transaction type, amount and speed to identify questionable activity and report it to credit unions.

“It is CO-OP’s job to make sure that our clients have access to the best technology to combat fraud and protect their members,” said Todd Clark, president and chief executive of CO-OP.

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“We believe the most effective answer lies in developing a machine learning and artificial intelligence solution that we can bring to our credit unions at scale. The launch of Cooper Fraud Analyzer into client testing marks a major milestone in the evolution of CO-OP as a financial technology provider, and it is particularly significant in that we are first providing this tool to one of the industry’s most valuable assets, the CO-OP Shared Branch network.”

During the testing period, shared branch account-based transactions will automatically flow through the analyzer from the pilot credit unions.

The CO-OP team is monitoring the activity generated through Cooper, listening to feedback from the credit unions and paying close attention to the client experience journey. It says this will ensure a “seamless rollout” across its entire shared branch network – of more than 1,800 credit unions – before the end of the year.

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The CO-OP network comprises more than 5,700 locations nationwide, making it the second largest system of financial services branches in the US.

The organisation will follow the rollout with the introduction of Cooper Fraud Score, using machine learning to create a risk-scoring model that determines the level of suspicion for a transaction. This capability will be available on account-based and card-based products in 2019, says CO-OP.