NatWest has been recognised for "Best Security and Anti-Fraud Development" following its enterprise-wide deployment of the ARIC™ Risk Hub; Featurespace's real-time machine learning Enterprise Financial Crime prevention software.   

The award was announced during The Card & Payments Awards’ digital ceremony on April 29, 2021. 

Featurespace’s ARIC Risk Hub safeguards payments across NatWest's commercial and consumer divisions from all known fraud types, as well as new scams and attacks.  

Featurespace’s ARIC technology achieves this by risk scoring every event within its authorization stream and predicting individual customer behaviors.  

Since deploying the ARIC Risk Hub, NatWest has achieved:  

• A substantial improvement in value of fraud detected 
• An exponential increase in scam value detection rate  
• Greater overall customer satisfaction 
• Reduced operational strain  
• A higher Net Promoter Score (NPS) 

“We selected Featurespace as a strategic partner as the team and their technology gave us the best understanding of NatWest’s requirements to protect our customers from the harm of fraud. This award win is testament to Featurespace’s excellence in this area,” said Gavin Coull, Fraud and Customer Authentication Strategy Lead at NatWest.  

“The financial return on our investment has outstripped our expectations and with ARIC’s integration to our existing customer communication platform, we've seen a significant improvement in customer handling and complaints." 

From the judges: 

• "[Authorised Push Payment] fraud is a massive problem for the industry. The regulator is concerned and is encouraging innovation in this area to invest in new technology to reduce that. The risk cover that NatWest have done with Featurespace is innovative in the space." 
• "Featurespace is stepping up its game in fraud detection transaction monitoring, and what they’ve done with NatWest is unbelievable." 

“NatWest is fulfilling an ambitious vision to protect its customers from the exponential threats of financial crime. This recognition shows that NatWest is at the forefront of security innovation and a leader at protecting its customers and their money. We’re honoured to be NatWest’s chosen partner and to be helping them drive towards achieving their vision,” said Martina King, CEO of Featurespace. 

The Card & Payments Awards recognize excellence and innovation across the industry. Winners of the prestigious awards are selected by an independent panel of expert judges.  

For Featurespace, this recognition follows the recent launch of Featurespace's Automated Deep Behavioral Networks for the card and payments industry, which provides a deeper layer of defense against scams, account takeover, card and payments fraud, which cost the financial services industry an estimated $42 billion last year.