In recent times, financial systems have witnessed immense transformation and improvement as cutting-edge technologies, like AI, are being intertwined with financial services to improve the quality of services that are provided by financial institutions.
Payment technology giant, Visa, recently launched a suite of AI-powered services—VisaNet+AI— to address payment challenges that banks, merchants and consumers face. VisaNet+AI features new innovative and value-enriched services, including Visa Smarter Posting, Visa Smarter Settlement Forecast, and Visa Smarter Stand-In ProcessingThe (STIP).
Before the introduction of VisaNet+AI, Visa has been a key player in terms of integrating AI features into financial services, with previously existing AI-powered services like its sophisticated AI-powered credit application fraud prevention tool. However, VisaNet+AI stretches beyond the previous capabilities of Visa’s AI-driven services.
Visa Smarter Posting
The Visa Smarter Posting service helps to reduce the lag that occurs during customer transactions when payments take long to finalize. The
Smarter Posting service dynamically updates the account balance of customers, thereby, providing real-time visibility of funds. This service is very useful in cases where the account balance of customers change between the checkout and a customer’s statement balance, for example, when a cross border payment involving multiple currencies is made. The Visa Smarter Posting service will help to prevent overdrafts or negative balances that occur when funds are yet to be settled in the bank account, enabling a dynamic synchronization of bank balances. In cases like this where transactions are yet to be settled or finalized, the service will effect a provisional update of the customer’s account balance so that customers can know how much exactly they have left and enjoy a seamless payment experience.
The Smarter Posting service uses AI to provide a customized score for each transaction during the authorization process. The Smarter Posting model predicts the likelihood that a transaction amount will be consistent through the clearing process, based on an analysis of historical data. The model achieved an accuracy of 98% when tested to predict whether a transaction amount will remain consistent.
The Smarter Posting service will be available in Europe by April 2021 before expanding to other regions.
Visa Smarter Settlement Forecast
The Smarter Settlement Forecast service provides a solution to the challenge that financial institutions face in predicting the volume of cash that will be needed to meet the settlement volume of each day. The service provides a customized 7-day forecast of the amount that clients will need each day for payment settlements.
Using data on historical settlement volumes, major trends, seasonal indicators like festive seasons, outlier events like in the case of Covid-19, and real-time transaction data, the Smarter Settlement Forecast is able to provide quality predictions of cash flow needed by clients each day.
Visa Smarter Stand-In Processing(STIP)
Visa Smarter STIP, the first of the VisaNet+AI services, was announced in August 2020. The Smarter STIP harnesses the power of deep learning to assist financial institutions in the authorization of transactions during outages.
Smarter STIP is capable of generating well informed decisions to facilitate the approval or decline of transactions on behalf of issuers. This provides customers with a seamless payment experience with Visa.
With VisaNet+AI, the Visa team is just beginning the journey of developing innovative AI-powered solutions to payment challenges. In the words of Jack Forestell, executive vice president and chief product officer, Visa, on behalf of the Visa team, “With our investment in AI infrastructure, we’re unlocking novel, real-time solutions to complex problems. This is just the beginning of what we can do with the predictive power of AI.”
