SAS, the global leader in business intelligence, and HSBC Holdings plc, one of the largest banking and financial services organisations in the world, have announced a long-term partnership to transform the payment card fraud-detection market.

Each year, banks and financial organisations across the world lose more than $2 billion annually to payment card fraud. Over the last decade, as banks have developed improved processes and systems to identify and stop fraud, fraudsters have also adapted. Today most banks rely on fraud-detection systems, but the types of fraud threats faced by card issuers evolve rapidly. HSBC recognizes the need for a new generation of fraud detection that includes more sophisticated analytic intelligence, real-time decision making at the point of sale, and complete integration with anti-fraud measures - such as chip and PIN - across the industry.

"We chose to work with SAS primarily because of its technology assets, extensive R&D capability and industry leadership, and its ability to support us across the globe. We are impressed with SAS' understanding of our business goals and its flexibility to meet our demanding requirements," said Siddharth N. Mehta, chief executive officer at HSBC North America Holdings Inc.

"By combining our proven ability to deliver robust and innovative predictive analytic solutions with HSBC's banking 'know how' we have the ability to change the way the industry looks at its fraud detection solutions," said Dr. Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS.

With a credit and debit card portfolio of well over 100 million cards, HSBC is one of the world's largest plastic card issuers. The new SASŪ solution will be implemented in all of HSBC's major card businesses worldwide. In addition to reducing potential losses, the project will lower the operational costs of fighting fraud and will create a more flexible fraud platform so that HSBC can respond faster to new threats as they arise. SAS and HSBC are also cooperating on developing a strategy to extend the technology into other transaction monitoring applications.

"The SAS partnership will help HSBC stay at the forefront of the industry in protecting its customers and its business from fraud. Since fraud prevention and detection is a shared goal across the financial industry, SAS is already working with a number of other institutions to build a broader consortium in conjunction with HSBC," said Ian Manocha, director of the worldwide fraud practice at SAS.