UPDATED 15:12 EDT / DECEMBER 08 2023

CLOUD

MasterCard extends its fraud detection capabilities through partnership with Persistent Systems and AWS

Credit card companies have been using artificial intelligence for quite some time, and one major provider is now looking at generative AI for additional solutions.

MasterCard International Inc. is the second largest credit card network by purchasing volume, and each transaction is scored at lightning-fast speed to determine the probability of fraud using AI. MasterCard’s familiarity with AI has been a boon for the merchants it serves.

“We’ve been doing this for a very long time, for a number of years; and on an ongoing basis, about 2% of the transactions are denied, which ends up saving merchants billions of dollars,” said Manu Thapar (pictured, left), chief technology officer of MasterCard. “Some of the fundamental concepts of large language models, which can be used for language generation, can also be used for code generation, and we are using that, looking at that to improve developer productivity. We are also looking at ways to extend generative AI for improving the rest of the business.”

Thapar spoke with theCUBE industry analyst John Furrier at the “Supercloud 5: The Battle for AI Supremacy” event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. He was joined by Drew Jenkins (right), head of the AWS alliance at Persistent Systems Inc., and they discussed how MasterCard, Persistent and Amazon Web Services Inc. are collaborating on a set of new solutions for generative AI. (* Disclosure below.)

Leveraging global data

MasterCard uses AI and machine learning services from AWS to improve its fraud detection capabilities globally. The credit card giant is also working with Persistent to develop ways to improve the speed with which it can deploy software in the cloud.

“The actual code the models run is not that large in terms of lines of code, but it’s the data that makes the difference,” Thapar said. “The fortunate part is that MasterCard has a huge amount of data worldwide that helps us get better, learn better, and machine learning is all about having good data and being able to leverage that successfully.”

For Persistent, a collaboration with AWS and its work with MasterCard provide an opportunity to fund new solutions in advancing the use of generative AI in the enterprise.

“We’re trying to drive experimentation with our customers when it comes to generative AI,” Jenkins said. “We just signed a strategic collaboration agreement with AWS specific to generative AI. What that means is they are providing increased investment in Persistent in exchange for us making commitments to grow that business, and a part of that is funding proof of concept for customers like MasterCard and others.”

A proof of concept could provide advances in how generative AI will be used in the future by major credit card networks, such as MasterCard for fraud monitoring.

“If we look at how large language models work, they basically take a sequence of words and predict the next word,” Thapar explained. “Once that’s predicted, that sequence is taken and the next word is predicted. One can move from there to taking a sequence of transactions and then predicting the next transaction. If the actual transaction is far away in terms of vector space from the predicted transaction, we know that it has some probability of fraud.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the “Supercloud 5: The Battle for AI Supremacy” event:

(* Disclosure: Persistent Systems Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Persistent nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE

A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Support our open free content by sharing and engaging with our content and community.

Join theCUBE Alumni Trust Network

Where Technology Leaders Connect, Share Intelligence & Create Opportunities

11.4k+  
CUBE Alumni Network
C-level and Technical
Domain Experts
15M+ 
theCUBE
Viewers
Connect with 11,413+ industry leaders from our network of tech and business leaders forming a unique trusted network effect.

SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation serving innovative audiences and brands, bringing together cutting-edge technology, influential content, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios — such as those established in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) — SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology, and AI. .

Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a powerful ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands, with a reach of 15+ million elite tech professionals. The company’s new, proprietary theCUBE AI Video cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.