Scenario
A financial services provider offering retail credit products faced a familiar problem: Digital fraud was shifting faster than its defenses could adapt across the customer lifecycle.
At the point of application, fraudsters used stolen personal information to pose as legitimate applicants. As the organization tightened contact center controls to combat account takeover (ATO) attempts, attackers moved to a new front: mobile app registration — increasing fraud risk in a critical digital service channel.
The fraud team's existing tools leaned heavily on identity verification and step-up challenges that were susceptible to stolen identity information and credentials. Fraudsters were passing fraud controls using legitimate information while impersonating real people. What the team lacked was a persistent, harder-to-fake signal, something that didn't depend on user trust.
The stakes were real: Unchecked impersonation fraud meant direct losses, and unchecked account takeover put existing customer relationships at risk. The team needed a way to see past the identity to evaluate the interaction — without slowing down legitimate customers.
Strategy
The client's fraud team engaged TransUnion® to help reduce risk without creating unnecessary friction. Working together, TransUnion identified device intelligence as the missing defensive layer needed to satisfy three client priorities:
- A persistent identifier that could flag a device across multiple application attempts, not just a single session, to uncover criminal networks
- Real-time fraud risk updates to block suspicious devices immediately rather than flag them after the fact
- Integration TransUnion data the organization already relied on, including credit risk and fraud solutions
Enhancing multiple proprietary internal systems increased the project complexity, but TransUnion implemented TruValidate™ Device Risk, alongside email and phone risk signals in six months.
Results
Working with TransUnion, the client was able to enhance digital fraud detection across the customer lifecycle without adding undue friction for legitimate customers. With Device Risk in place, the organization realized key goals:
- A reduction in impersonation fraud for new applicants
- Improved detection of fraud rings from deeper behavioral insight across applications
- Stronger ATO prevention, with suspicious devices flagged and blocked in real time during mobile app registration
In the words of the manager overseeing the organization's fraud systems strategy and analytics:
"I would recommend TruValidate Device Risk. We've had good successes with it, and I can see through the updates I'm getting there's always improvement going on in the background to get better device data and add extra information. As a company already using TransUnion products, the seamless integration of Device Risk made it so easy for us to get up and running."
Learn how TransUnion can help strengthen your fraud prevention strategy across the customer lifecycle.
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