Originally published February 27 2005
Fair Isaac provides both credit scores and protection from fraud
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Fair Isaac Corp., which is based out of San Diego, is not only one of the major credit reporting agencies -- they provide the FICO score -- they are also heavily involved in detecting credit card fraud. By acquiring HNC and their neural net technology, Fair Isaac's computers can determine whether a purchase is fraudulent or not, helping the company to crack down on the $1 billion to $2 billion of credit card fraud that appears annually.
If you've ever applied for a credit card or mortgage, you probably know Fair Isaac Corp. as the company that calculates your credit score.
Lenders look at your FICO score, as it is known, to determine your creditworthiness.
But chances are the San Diego office of this $700 million-a-year corporation plays another important role in your life: protecting you from fraud.
The company's software may also be fighting fraud behind the scenes when you submit a medical claim, get a prescription filled, apply for a credit card or buy a car.
"The main idea of these systems is to make it unprofitable to be a criminal," said Ted Crooks, Fair Isaac's vice president of global fraud solutions in San Diego.
HNC brought with it a form of artificial intelligence, neural network technology that mimics the workings of the human brain so that computers can learn much the same way that humans do.
Neural networks use a set of computer processing elements, or nodes, that are modeled after neurons in the brain.
At the time of the acquisition, HNC's Falcon brand software was in widespread use protecting credit cards worldwide from fraudulent transactions.
HNC's software ran the gamut from identifying customers at risk of defaulting on a loan to recognizing handwriting to inspecting potato chips for Frito-Lay.
HNC's strong ties to the financial services industry led to its bread-and-butter product: its Falcon software that detects credit-card fraud.
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