The joint initiative, which aligns fraud control systems, strategies and services from IBM and Fair Isaac, is designed to assist banks in evolving their fraud management capabilities beyond point solutions that detect traditional forms of fraud at the product level or within a line of business. The increasing variety of fraud attacks often take advantage of this "siloed" approach and force banks into a reactive mode that can stretch internal resources.

"With the cost of fraud reaching well into the billions of dollars, investing in one point solution after another is no longer a viable way of managing fraud losses," said Gresh Brebach, Fair Isaac vice president of Corporate Development. "Fraudsters are well aware of the inability of many organizations to share information and resources to combat fraud across the enterprise and maneuver between silos to maximize their gain over time and through multiple accounts."

The combination of Fair Isaac's industry-leading analytic fraud management capabilities with IBM's consulting, integration and risk management services offers retail banks a powerful and comprehensive resource in the fight against the global threat of bank fraud. The new fraud assessment service, which allows banks to maximize their systems and staff investments, follows the recent launch of Fair Isaac's Falcon One system, a new enterprise software solution designed to help banks effectively combat both existing and emerging types of fraud at every point of customer interaction.

Falcon One platform's component-oriented architecture takes full advantage of IBM DB2 Universal Database and WebSphere Application Server capabilities to enable the scalability required for high-volume, high-speed transaction analysis. Establishing critical services such as this in a re-usable, platform independent way using IBM's middleware aligns with IBM's recommended practice of moving to a Service Oriented Architecture.

"TowerGroup believes the IBM and Fair Isaac partnership will serve as an important driver of enterprise fraud management implementations, with both companies benefiting substantially from the union," said Virginia Garcia, Research Director, Financial Services Strategies, TowerGroup. "Falcon One brings to the table common case management, workflow, and real-time and batch capabilities as well as ID verification, all in a cross-channel, cross-line-of-business environment for the retail bank."

Fair Isaac and IBM believe that an enterprise fraud management solution requires the ability to leverage a common platform that uses an organization's best existing technologies and investments, and extends those investments with a comprehensive set of fraud management capabilities. Maintaining separate systems for regulatory reporting and prevention is increasingly inefficient and expensive.

"The rapid spread of fraud across the retail bank that begins when criminals use one banking product to access a customer's total banking relationship is a service, security and profitability dilemma," said Diane Bartlett, banking executive in IBM's Business Consulting Services Division. "The combination of the analytic, data-driven platform in Falcon One with IBM's Business Consulting Services Risk and Compliance Practice provides the agility needed to react when fraud crosses the retail bank."

IBM Business Consulting Services has deep operational and organizational change skills which support the successful implementation of the Fair Isaac Falcon One solution. IBM links industry-oriented business strategy and process consulting with systems integration capabilities to deliver end-to-end solutions. As part of the enterprise fraud solution, Fair Isaac Fraud Consultants partner with their IBM counterparts to help clients evaluate the scope of the fraud problem, then design and implement a solution that closes the door on fraud activity in every category.