Technology is central to every industry across the globe, and the world of credit risk and fraud is no different. However, as we get into 2019, it’s becoming very clear that it will be the year that we see some new tech trends disrupt, shift and change the credit industry’s landscape.  

The growth of the pick and mix culture

As the fight against fast, smart and indiscriminate cyber-fraud continues, some of the he most forward-thinking businesses have deliberately been mixing-up market leaders in each of the key disciplines of biometrics, device recognition, authentication and so on.  This has been the alternative to investing in a single, mammoth system to undertake a whole business process and they been able to do this thanks to SaaS and API online interface technology.

This trend is set to take off in 2019 and become mainstream, particularly within the credit risk arena as organisations realise the potential of new legislative opportunities offered by PSD2.

Taking customer self-service to the next level

 Much investment has been made in technology that helps ensure consumers can ‘self-serve’ easily, quickly, whenever and however they want.  And this has guaranteed organisations a high-level of customer satisfaction, as well as a reduction in running costs and churn.  People’s expectations, however, are now well beyond the bare minimum of being able to apply for credit online. 

Top performers will be those that pre-emptively offer savvy customers pre-approved offers that are readily embedded into their favourite e-commerce sites.  And, this will be particularly relevant when it comes to buying high-ticket items opening up a whole new host of challenges and opportunities for credit and fraud risk professionals.

The rise and rise of data insight

To stay ahead in this new and ever-changing world, it is even more important to be alert to and understand critical consumer messages swimming in our increasingly bigger data oceans. Understanding customer wants and needs, the most appropriate solutions for them, while spotting viable new opportunities at speed, are all key.  2019’s challenges won’t really hinge on getting hold of the data, but interpreting and making sense of what it says.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) goes mainstream as Machine Learning (ML) does the business

It is now possible to open up our data oceans to ML algorithms and allow the computer to work out what the underlying message is.  While AI and ML have predominantly resided in data labs, their use in the credit and fraud risk world has been growing.  Some early adopters have been analysing speech patterns during collections conversations to determine the risk of a promise to pay not being kept.  While others have analysed likely card spending patterns to highlight the risk of fraud or churn.  2019 will see these technologies become mainstream, while the scale of use cases and opportunities grow exponentially.

While this is a snapshot of this year’s key tech trends, we expect it to be the year many ‘revolutionary’ working practices go mainstream and become a catalyst for driving credit and fraud-risk management from here on.