Bank reveals how new pattern recognition technology reduces fraud attempts, streamlines customer experience and earns global industry recognition.
Bank of Ireland has reported a marked improvement in its fight against payment fraud after deploying an AI-powered detection system that identifies suspicious activity before transactions are completed.
The Bank said that attempted payment fraud has fallen by 30% since the introduction of the technology in 2024, while customer losses linked to fraud have declined by 25%.
“Protecting our customers against fraud is one of our top priorities – and staying ahead of the fraudsters requires constant innovation”
The system, developed in partnership with Visa’s Featurespace, uses behavioural pattern recognition to detect unusual account activity in real time.
“Protecting our customers against fraud is one of our top priorities – and staying ahead of the fraudsters requires constant innovation,” said Nicola Sadlier, head of Fraud Protection at Bank of Ireland.
“Combining the latest AI-powered technology through the Featurespace platform with our fraud expertise has transformed our payment fraud detection and prevention.
“Along with significantly reducing payment fraud losses, we’ve been able to do so in a way that’s simple, seamless and effective for customers. This collaborative, award-winning work is ultimately delivering the best protection for our customers.”
Beating the fraudsters
The Featurespace platform uses AI and machine learning to help banks and financial institutions to identify both existing and new forms of fraud.
The platform uses AI to understand how accounts are typically used, helping the Bank identify potentially suspicious behaviour earlier, while reducing unnecessary alerts that can delay payments.
Beyond direct financial impact, Bank of Ireland’s new approach has made the process smoother and simpler for customers:
- Halved case handling time
- 1% drop in false positives – meaning that customers are less likely to be contacted or asked to confirm a payment
- 85% reduction in alert volumes – far fewer transactions need to be checked by the Bank. This allows Bank staff to focus more on higher-risk and potentially suspicious payments
- 90% of customers confirm genuine transactions without contacting the Bank
“As criminals continue to employ more sophisticated methods and technologies, Visa solutions, such as the Featurespace platform, can enable financial institutions to stay a step ahead of fraudsters and tackle rising fraud rates,” explained James Mirfin, SVP, Head of Risk and Security Intelligence at Visa.
“Our work with Bank of Ireland, and the recognition it has received, clearly proves this, reducing fraud losses and enabling the bank to adapt to new and evolving attack patterns without increasing friction for customers.
“This combination of adaptability and customer experience is exactly what the industry should be striving for – it shows what’s possible when banks move beyond static controls, to real-time intelligent decisioning.”
The results have received global recognition from Celent’s 2026 Model Risk Manager Award, marking excellent usage of technology by a financial institution, highlighting industry best practice and setting a benchmark for future fraud resilience.
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