Visa has announced an enhanced version of A2A Protect, delivering real-time risk insights that help banks stop account-to-account fraud before money leaves customer accounts.
The expanded solution introduces a new unified fraud score – Visa's first in-market integration of Featurespace technology – giving financial institutions faster, clearer signals to detect more fraud while reducing unnecessary alerts.
As account-to-account payments accelerate globally, A2A transactions are projected to surpass 5.8 trillion by 2028, a 160 per cent increase from 2024. A2A Protect leverages advanced AI and sophisticated transfer learning, giving banks immediate access to critical global risk insights on A2A transactions without waiting months for models to develop intelligence from a bank's own transaction data.
"We are delivering results and value from day one," Visa said. Banks that opt in can incorporate additional network-level signals to enhance detection of emerging threats operating across the ecosystem.
James Mirfin, Head of Risk and Security Solutions at Visa, said fraudsters move fast across payment types, and financial institutions need risk insights just as quickly.
"Fraudsters move fast across payment types, and financial institutions need risk insights just as quickly, without slowing down legitimate payments," Mirfin said. "A2A Protect combines Visa's network expertise with Featurespace's technology to deliver a powerful new layer of protection that helps financial institutions detect more fraud, earlier."
For financial institutions that opt into network-level intelligence sharing, A2A Protect highlights emerging scam hotspots and coordinated fraud activity – insights that may be difficult for individual financial institutions to detect alone, and that help the wider ecosystem respond faster to new threats. This gives financial institutions a more complete and early view of risk, helping to identify scams before authorisation.
Visa said A2A Protect has been shown to increase fraud detection by 75 per cent in the first six months of deployment, reduce more than 50 per cent of fraud and cut unnecessary fraud alerts by more than 40 per cent.
The solution integrates with financial institutions' current systems through a single API, reducing implementation time and complexity. Each alert includes a plain-language explanation of why a transaction was flagged, helping fraud teams act quickly and confidently without disrupting genuine customers.