Have You Used OneBridge Authorization Filters?
We know that risk management is a major concern for both you and your cardholders. As an issuer, you want to do all you can to avoid the pain that comes with sorting out fraudulent charges. As a cardholder, you want to know that no one else has made charges to your card.
With this in mind, the OneBridge Gateway processing system offers authorization filters as an extremely effective tool in the fight against card fraud. Authorization filters allow you to decline transactions that you determine are at a high-risk of being fraudulent.
To apply these filters, you work with OneBridge to define characteristics of transactions you consider to be of high-risk (based on things like dollar amount, city or country of transaction, merchant name, etc.). Parameters are then set so that all authorization requests fitting those criteria are automatically declined.
OneBridge clients have found authorization filters to be very helpful in targeting unknown, random fraud. For example, one institution declines all cash disbursements over $5000. Another refuses online gambling charges. Many institutions even elect to use filters to prevent authorizations in specific countries where they see large amounts of fraud.
Heritage Federal Credit Union in Newburgh, IN is one institution that has effectively used authorization filters to decline potentially fraudulent transactions. "As soon as we discovered suspicious charges from Great Britain, we notified OneBridge," said Tim Lukomski, CFO. "Within 10 minutes they reviewed all of our card accounts, identified the fraud, and put the appropriate filters in place. It took no time at all."
Authorization filters can also be used to help prevent illegitimate charges in the event of identified, large-scale fraud scams. So far in 2005, quite a few wide-spread fraud scams have surfaced. One of the largest began in February and involved illegitimate charges of $29.99 and $39.99 from a merchant called Pluto Data, Ltd. Upon identifying this fraud, OneBridge was able to place an authorization filter on all client BINs to decline any authorization requests coming from the phony Pluto Data merchant.
"There is no single fraud prevention tool that is capable of fighting card fraud on its own. Good risk management requires a variety of products and processes working in tandem," said Nancy Linxwiler, OneBridge vice president of product development and management. "OneBridge authorization filters provide our clients with another very effective method of mitigating fraud."
If you are interested in learning more about how authorization filters can fit into your risk management program, contact OneBridge Client Service at 800-322-4035 or via email at clientservice@onebridge.com. | 
