JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Visa prevented 80 million fraudulent transactions worth $40 billion globally last year thanks to investments in technology including artificial intelligence (AI), a senior company figure said on Tuesday.
In 2025, cybercrime is projected to cost the world $10.5 trillion. If this were a nation's gross domestic product, it would rank as the world's third-largest economy, Charles Lobo, the Regional Risk Officer for Visa in Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa told Reuters.
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Worldwide, the world's largest payments processor has invested over $10 billion over the past five years in technology, including $500 million on AI and data infrastructure to protect clients and customers from fraudulent activity.
"In just the last year, those investments, how have they benefited us? We've blocked $40 billion of fraudulent transactions. That's 80 million transactions prevented," Lobo told Reuters on the sidelines of a Visa payment security conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.
"Now despite that, there's still a lot of bad that's happening," he added.
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