RM - Launches New Data Service To Help Businesses Tackle Id

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Royal Mail Launches New Data Service To Help Businesses Tackle Id Fraud
26/10/2010


Royal Mail today launched a new data service to provide companies with extra insight to help them to tackle identity fraud even more effectively.

NCOA® Alert helps flag to businesses potentially suspicious activity at the point of an application for a product or service.

The NCOA® Alert file is built using Royal Mail’s national change of address insight from three years of pending, live, cancelled, and expired Redirections as well as Multiple Residency data from the Postcode Address File®.

Available from credit reference agencies and other financial intermediaries who provide fraud prevention systems, NCOA® Alert can be used by companies to indicate different types of suspicious activity, including:
• previous occupier fraud - where someone impersonates an individual at an old address or attempts to take over an old account
• application fraud - where a genuine person’s identity is stolen and a fraudster has attempted to divert their mail
• mail interception fraud - where more than one person may have access to mail boxes or shared hallways

The launch of NCOA® Alert, comes as the National Fraud Authority estimated that identity fraud costs the UK over £2.7billion per year .

Keith Jones, Head of Data Strategy at Royal Mail, said: "We have designed NCOA® Alert to work hand-in-hand with existing fraud screening systems, to add an extra layer of protection for UK businesses and consumers alike.

"NCOA® Alert is intended to protect the consumer without compromising their privacy rights and provides an extra layer of defence to help businesses in the financial, insurance and retail sectors reduce the costs associated with fraudulent activity."

He added: "Often, ID thieves have constructed a thorough fake identity using a genuine person’s details - accessing the physical post is the last piece of the puzzle. NCOA® Alert provides companies with the information to stop the fraudster in their tracks and further extends the protection consumers receive from their Redirection service."

The file also provides additional attributes and information, to help an organisation assess whether an application is potentially fraudulent, such as:
- Redirection status, such as whether a redirection is pending, live, cancelled or expired
- Redirection duration and renewal indicator
- A Multiple Residency flag for ‘from’ and ‘to’ addresses where many people may have access to the mail
- Geodemographic analysis to gauge whether a redirection is being forwarded to a significantly different address profile
- NCOA Forwarding Address, where the forwarding address is available to purchase through Royal Mail’s NCOA® Update product
- A bereavement flag, where a redirection has been applied for on behalf of a deceased individual

These factors can be used to gauge the reliability of changes to an address, highlighting where potential applications may be fraudulent, pinpointing addresses where there is a higher risk of mail interception (such as house shares), and improving risk scoring for an individual overall. Ultimately, NCOA® Alert enables organisations to make informed judgements about the likelihood of inbound and outbound fraud from an address.

ENDS
Issued on behalf of Royal Mail by Eulogy!
Tel: 020 7927 9999
Email: royalmail@eulogy.co.uk