AT&T today announced a trial that will see the company use customer location data to help credit card companies make better decisions about whether to decline or approve certain international transactions.
The pilot, which kicks off this summer, follows a similar one being tested by MasterCard and Syniverse. Customers can choose to opt in to the AT&T program, which will share their handset’s location data with their credit card company. The issuing bank will then know, for example, that John Doe landed in London and it can use that data to decide if transactions made on that card in that location are legitimate.
The goal is to help businesses and their traveling employees by making sure truly fraudulent purchases are blocked, while legitimate purchases are allowed. The service relies on AT&T’s Location Information Services and related APIs so banks and other companies can make use of geographical data in their apps.
If the summer program is successful, AT&T will expand the service to its enterprise customers later in the year.
