Card Briefs: 1st Data Unit Strengthens Antifraud System

First Data Corp.'s TeleCheck subsidiary said it is introducing neural network technology to prevent fraud and other check- cashing losses.

TeleCheck said it turned to Deep View Systems LLC of West Bloomfield, Mich., to create an on-line neural network system to process all check authorizations. Its complex mathematical formulas parse transaction patterns and "learn" to identify suspicious ones.

"While TeleCheck currently can stop about one-half of fraud in real time at the point of sale-meaning those checks are not accepted-some types of fraud are difficult or impossible to detect," said Jim Lerdal, president and chief operating officer of TeleCheck Services Inc. "Neural network technology will drive substantial improvement in TeleCheck's ability to make decisions on unknown check-writers and improve customer service by increasing the accuracy of predicting which checks may go bad."

The neural technology will enhance the use of predictive risk-management scorecards, which TeleCheck said it pioneered in the check acceptance business in 1991. In 1997, the Houston-based organization authorized $98.3 billion of checks and processed more than 1.9 billion check inquiries.