Sherene Jose: How Mastercard Reimagined the Fight Against Fraud

Sherene Jose, VP and Chief of Staff, Cyber and Intelligence
Solutions at Mastercard explains how they reimagined their fraud
detection teams as revenue-generating innovation machines You might
not have heard of Mastercard’s cyber and intelligence solutions
team, but you have probably used their technology. Chip and PIN,
contactless payments and even biometric-secured purchases are all
part of the growing arsenal of payment solutions they oversee at
the financial services giant. In fact, creating innovative ways to
make shopping safer and easier for their customers the team’s core
purpose, explains Mastercard VP Chief of Staff Cyber and
Intelligence Solutions Sherene Jose in this week’s episode of the
Business of Data podcast. “Theoretically, the best way to achieve
zero fraud loss is to just reject every transaction, right?” quips
Jose. “[To prevent that] we have to intelligently find ways to
navigate the consumer experience and minimize any security risks.”
The Birth of Cyber and Intelligence Solutions at Mastercard Prior
to 2014, Mastercard had fraud detection and management teams dotted
around the business. These decentralized teams were primarily seen
as a function of cost control, designed to minimize fraud losses
for customers. Then came the big idea: Consolidate these
departments with external expertise and create a new,
revenue-generating cyber intelligence unit for the business. This
unit is now responsible for protecting Mastercard’s payment
ecosystem from fraud, creating innovative solutions for its
customers and differentiating their core offerings. Of course,
patching together a newly conceived cyber intelligence unit from a
combination of disparate teams and newly acquired startups is
easier said than done. “There was an evolution where teams working
in specific verticals of authentication and fraud management and so
on learned to come together and think across different verticals,”
says Jose. “I could immediately sense the excitement, the sense
that things are possible because of this paradigm shift. That mood
continues to this day.” Now, the cyber and intelligence solutions
unit is at the forefront of innovation and fraud prevention for the
company. In the first eight months of last year alone, their
AI-powered cybersecurity system ‘Safety Net’ blocked over $113
Million USD in fraudulent transactions in the US. Innovating
Payments While Maintaining Customer Security The uptake of
technologies like contactless payments, spearheaded at Mastercard
by Jose’s team, has skyrocketed during the pandemic. For Jose, the
goal is to continue to create seamless and safe ways for their
customers to shop, whether that’s online or in-store. “An example
of this would be digital wallets, right? You don’t have to key in
your password or your PIN to just go ahead and [make]
transactions,” she explains. “That’s the kind of seamless
experience that we are trying to recreate in every channel.” To do
this, it is vital that Jose’s team understands rapidly changing
customer needs. By leveraging data and analytics, they are able to
build a more complete picture to work from as they create highly
secure and innovative payment solutions. “Mastercard as an
organization has a very conservative and consumer-centric approach
to data and analytics,” she explains. “We never want to store any
personally identifiable data. The insights that we get from data in
aggregate is what powers our solutions.” “What is top of mind for
us is how do we keep our ecosystem safe and how do we keep our
stakeholders safe in this environment?” she concludes. “There’s a
lot more that we can do and we’re working hard towards it by
leveraging the power of data and analytics.” Key Takeaways • Fraud
management need not only be a ‘cost’. By leveraging their
expertise, fraud teams can be turned into innovation engines •
Seamless and secure payments are the heart of the customer
experience. Seamless and safe transactions make for happy customers
• AI is a powerful tool aga