Enza, a payment technology and financial infrastructure provider, has partnered with AI-powered fraud detection company Fraudio to strengthen fraud and financial crime controls for banks, payment companies and other financial institutions across Africa.
Under the partnership, Fraudio’s artificial intelligence and machine learning technology will be integrated into enza’s payment platform through enzaGuard, enabling customers to access real-time fraud detection as they develop and deploy payment products and services.
Enza said enzaGuard will provide a cloud-based fraud detection layer capable of analysing transaction signals across card issuing and acquiring, transfers, digital wallets and ATM activity.
The system uses transaction patterns, enriched data attributes, peer-group behaviour and sequences of transactions to generate risk scores within milliseconds. These scores can then be incorporated into existing payment authorisation, 3DS authentication and transaction review processes.
According to the companies, the integration is intended to reduce the need for financial institutions using enza’s platform to source and integrate a separate fraud detection system.
The partnership comes as the expansion of digital payments across African markets creates new opportunities for financial institutions while also exposing payment networks and customers to increasingly sophisticated forms of fraud.
Enza said the solution is designed to detect threats including account takeover, automated bot attacks, mule networks and authorised push payment scams. It also covers merchant-related fraud, mule activity and suspicious movement of funds.
The companies said the use of AI could help institutions improve fraud detection while reducing false positives, which can result in legitimate transactions being declined or customers facing unnecessary security checks.
Hany Fekry, chief executive officer of enza, said the integration would allow customers to access fraud protection as part of the company’s payment platform.
“Fraud is evolving rapidly as digital payments scale across Africa,” Fekry said. “By integrating Fraudio’s AI capabilities directly into enzaGuard, we can give our customers sophisticated protection as part of the enza platform.”
João Moura, founder and chief executive officer of Fraudio, said the partnership would allow the company’s technology to be embedded directly into payment systems used by financial institutions across the continent.
“Our mission is to fight fraud smarter by decomplexifying and disrupting the fraud detection industry,” Moura said.
The partnership is expected to give financial institutions using enza’s infrastructure access to fraud and financial crime detection capabilities without having to deploy a separate fraud technology layer as they introduce new payment services.
Dear Trevor: Africa is calling (1)