Real-time global anti-fraud collaboration is already here

In a week filled with data breach news, it's refreshing to see Visa's chief risk officer call for collaboration to stop fraud, and I applaud, however, there's something very important missing.

Collaborating to share critical information and insights about fraud among "all players in the payment system", as well as government organizations, police, and merchants is a worthy goal, but it is much more than talking and having meetings at a conference. Let's call that Collaboration v1.0

Real collaboration to defeat fraud is already here. The Global Fraud-Fighting Community (click the link to see videos contributed by members of the community) is a rapidly growing body of e-commerce stakeholders that includes retailers, online travel, payment service providers, fraud solution vendors, card issuers and policing organizations and others, all dedicated to working together by pooling critical information so they can know their customers better, and accurately sift out the fraudsters. By combining what they know, they get a 360 degree view of customer behaviors online, from which they derive a far more accurate risk model.

This group operates in the real world, in real time, right now. Think of it as Collaboration v2.0.

Most importantly, it works. And it works better the more members join the community. So I compliment Visa on being right about the value of collaboration. But there is no need for big technology investments to reinvent the wheel -- a better option would surely be to join in the collaborative effort that already exists, which is PCI DSS compliant, and which has a technology backbone already in place.