CyberSource Inc, the back-end e-commerce services company has signed a strategic deal with the Visa USA unit of Visa International Inc to work to enhance CyberSource’s credit card fraud screening technology. The technology returns a score within two seconds to CyberSource’s more than 600 merchants based on about 150 tests and models to try and determine whether or not the credit card transaction is fraudulent.
It’s an exclusive deal with Visa USA, the parent company of which invested in CyberSource last year. Visa will aid CyberSource in developing its models and although the system works with any credit card, merchants that check Visa transactions using it will get a discount on the fraud screening charge. The scores are based not only on the credit card number and the customer’s name but also the IP address and other location details.
CyberSource handled around 8.7 million transactions in 1998 and did the same number in the first half of this year. The San Jose, California-based firm, which spun off Beyond.com earlier in its life, went public in late June.
