The Record - Issue 20: Spring 2021

87 Microsoft is also at the forefront of enabling the analysis of system data useful for cyber and fraud detection. “Azure Sentinel supports the ingestion of identity, mobile and web application, core banking, perimeter and other logs with the ability to construct your own machine learning models for anomalous behaviour and new pat- tern detections,” Nicolay says. “And then there’s the Microsoft Power Platform, which is useful in automating post-detection actions – both by enabling human based processes and workflows, or by automating system-based actions.” Financial services organisations operating across the globe are already realising the benefits of these solutions. Take Moneris, for example, which supports the payment processing needs for 350,000 merchant locations across Canada. To take a proactive stance against fraud, Moneris needed to expand its ability to reason over vast amounts of data for in-depth analysis. By moving to the Microsoft Azure cloud and leveraging AI, the company has realised a 450 per cent increase in its ability to view and assess incidents, with a resulting 10 per cent reduction in fraudulent customer and merchant activities. “Azure offered us the ability to incorporate this solution one step at a time and increase our capacity as we grow,” said Ben Salvador- Watts, Moneris’ director of data platforms in a Microsoft case study. “We were able to operate faster immediately and have the flexibility to iterate and refine our approach to AI as new possibilities present themselves.” Microsoft is also working directly with banks by providing extended data to support their fraud decisioning. It teamed up with Capital One, for example, to innovate on the way trans- action data is shared between e-commerce mer- chants like Microsoft and acquirers, which helps to boost acceptance rates for valid transactions and to reduce fraud. “By improving the way transaction data is shared between Capital One and merchants that use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection, we can reduce false-positives and improve fraud protection. That translates to lower fraud costs, increased acceptance rates, and a better cus- tomer experience,” explains Brenda Bown, gen- eral manager of Microsoft Business Applications in a blog post. And this is just the start. Nicolay expects greater collaboration between banks and other parties in the future. “One example of this will be through the rise of privacy enhancing F I NANC I A L S E R V I C E S