Featurespace selected by Akbank for protection against fraud

By Edil Corneille

Featurespace, the Enterprise Financial Crime prevention software provider, announced that Istanbul-based Akbank has selected the ARIC Risk Hub to reduce fraud risk while increasing acceptance rates across all transactional channels for nearly 18 million customers.

Semih Dilmen, Chief Information Risk Officer of Akbank apprised, “With Featurespace, we reduce fraud and genuine transactions declined across a dynamic range of services. This is critical to our ability to deliver a next-generation customer experience in today’s highly competitive environment.”

The financial institution in Turkey has 758 branches and 5,100 ATMs. Akbank is said to have built its reputation on satisfying customers with an enjoyable and secure banking experience at every touchpoint. However, as fraud evolves, detecting and preventing attacks without interfering with genuine customer behavior is increasingly challenging. Akbank has now sought to replace its existing system with an advanced platform that provides real-time enterprise-wide fraud detection.

Martina King, CEO of Featurespace elucidated, “Transaction volumes continue to increase in Turkey and criminals are always devising new scams and attacks to exploit customers and the financial institutions that serve them. By prioritizing a better customer experience through stronger fraud controls with ARIC Risk Hub, Akbank shows why it is a leader and underscores the imperative for advanced fraud detection and risk prevention systems.”

Following an extensive selection process to assess fraud and financial crime technologies, Cambridge-based Featurespace was selected for its use of advanced, self-learning models and the ability to provide a holistic view of customers.

The UK company has partnered with DVA Bilgi Teknolojileri A.Ş. to implement ARIC Risk Hub, which will safeguard every transaction across all of the bank’s channels, while also reducing the number of good transactions that are mistakenly blocked.

Powered by Adaptive Behavioral Analytics, a Featurespace invention, ARIC Risk Hub is a fraud detection and financial crime prevention platform with fully adaptive machine learning models that deliver real-time transaction monitoring for fraud and financial crime. This allows banks and payment providers to spot more fraud and suspicious activity as it happens, while also reducing the number of genuine transactions declined.