Quantum ready

Fraud examiners working in financial services are familiar with cutting-edge innovations to fight fraud. But quantum computing may be a game changer. Here we explore how this groundbreaking technology could help CFEs and some of the dangers it might entail.

In 2020, a Spanish quantum technology startup, Multiverse Computing, tested its quantum algorithm’s ability to detect fraud on a set of actual credit-card payments from across the European Union. The algorithm, operating on an IBM quantum computer, sifted through nearly 300,000 payments, and identified 200 fraudulent transactions. In an interview with Fraud Magazine, Multiverse’s co-founder and Chief Security Officer Román Orús, Ph.D., said his company’s quantum algorithm is 2% more accurate in scoping out fraud than the artificial intelligence software (AI) many financial institutions currently use. Two percent might not seem significant, but those few extra percentage points could help a large bank save millions of dollars from being lost to fraud, Orús adds.