Mastercard leverages AI vs digital payments fraud in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — As digital payments continue to rise in the Philippines, global payments company Mastercard is ramping up its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered fraud prevention efforts to protect consumers and businesses from financial crimes.

In an interview with The STAR, Mastercard country manager for the Philippines Simon Calasanz said AI has become a game-changer in securing digital transactions and Mastercard is at the forefront of leveraging AI to combat fraud.

The company’s AI-driven solution, TRACE, is designed to analyze vast amounts of real-time transaction data, track illicit fund movements and compute mule scores to detect suspicious activities.

Mastercard’s TRACE system tracks transactions across the InstaPay network and alerts financial institutions to potential threats. This helps financial institutions proactively prevent fraud, ensuring the security of the country’s growing digital payments ecosystem.

“For the Philippines, where digital payments are growing rapidly, this technology is transforming the speed and accuracy of our anti-fraud solutions,” Calasanz said.

“It also helps banks and businesses reduce false declines, ensuring legitimate transactions go through while blocking fraud in real time,” he said.

According to Mastercard, this technology scans over one trillion data points and could determine the legitimacy of a transaction in under 50 milliseconds. The company claims that this approach has improved fraud detection rates by up to 300 percent in some cases.

Calasanz said the solution is crucial as e-commerce and cashless transactions continue to expand in the country, offering financial institutions a smarter way to balance security and customer experience.

“By embedding AI-driven security measures, we empower financial institutions and businesses to stay ahead of evolving cyber threats, reinforcing trust and confidence in the digital payments ecosystem,” he said.

Aside from TRACE, the company is also deploying Decision Intelligence Pro, an advanced risk management solution that assesses relationships between multiple entities within a transaction to enhance security while reducing false declines.

According to Mastercard, it continues to work closely with financial institutions and regulators to strengthen fraud detection and prevention measures in the country.

“Our goal is to ensure that every digital transaction is seamless, secure and trusted,” Calasanz said.