Fifth Third bank buys UK anti-fraud software

Fifth Third Bank Processing Solutions (FTBPS) has signed a 10-year licensing deal with a UK-based vendor to provide fraud detection software for more than 135,000 locations.

Surrey outfit Retail Decisions has sold the bank Prism: software that detects ATM and card fraud across the bank and its 1,350 partners' networks.

Carl Clump, CEO of Retail Decisions, said: "We've sold the technology before in South Africa. It will mean more security and alerts for the customer and the bank.

"Unfortunately, it will also mean that the customer receives the occasional phone call asking, 'Are you in Harrods buying X?'. It's not a straightforward implementation - sometimes we have to take six months' worth of transactions to find out what fraud is."

The Prism software uses behavioural and probability analysis to monitor how people use their cards. If the system suspects abnormal behaviour, bank staff can freeze the account or the card until security checks are carried out.

FTBPS is one of four businesses operated by Ohio-based Fifth Third Bancorp. The company processes 12 billion ATM and ecommerce transactions per year.

Retail Decisions would not disclose the value of the deal.

Last month, HSBC announced it was deploying similar behaviour-based anti-fraud software from SAS.