Visa Unveils More Powerful AI Tool That Approves or Denies Card Transactions

[Prometheus]

Visa said it has developed a more advanced artificial intelligence system that can approve or decline credit and debit transactions on behalf of banks whose own networks are down. From a report:

The decision to approve or deny a transaction typically is made by the bank. But bank networks can crash because of natural disasters, buggy software or other reasons. Visa said its backup system will be available to banks who sign up for the service starting in October. The technology is “an incredible first step in helping us reduce the impact of an outage,” said Rajat Taneja, president of technology for Visa. The financial services company is the largest U.S. card network, as measured both by the number of cards in circulation and by transactions. The new service reflects the growing use of AI in banking. Banks are expected to spend $7.1 billion on AI in 2020, growing to $14.5 billion by 2024, on initiatives such as fraud analysis and investigation, according to market research firm International Data Corp. The service, Smarter Stand-In Processing, uses a branch of AI called deep learning that roughly mimics neurons in the human brain and is an underlying technology powering self-driving cars, voice-enabled digital assistants and facial recognition.