2025 FICO® Decision Award winner for Fraud Management recognized for transformative results across 715 financial institutions
HOLLYWOOD, Fla.--FICO World 25, May 06, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--FICO (NYSE: FICO):
Highlights:
Velera uses FICO® Platform’s Omni-Channel Engagement Capability to modernize fraud alerting for its clients and their cardholders
Achieved a 85% reduction in fraud alert time and a 76% increase in cardholder self-service efficiency
Migration of 715 financial institutions completed in eight months with no additional costs to clients
Velera has won a 2025 FICO® Decision Award for Fraud Management
At its FICO® World conference today, global analytics software leader FICO announced that Velera, a leading credit union service organization and fintech solutions provider, serving financial institutions in North America, has transformed its fraud alerting services using FICO® Platform’s Omni-Channel Engagement Capability. This shift has delivered faster alerts, higher automation, and a significantly improved cardholder experience for 715 financial institutions. For its achievements, Velera was named a 2025 FICO® Decision Award winner for Fraud Management.
Now in their 13th year, the FICO Decision Awards recognize organizations around the world that have achieved outstanding results using FICO’s analytics and decisioning technologies. Velera was one of just 15 winners selected by an independent panel of eight industry judges across 10 categories.
Faced with increasingly sophisticated and fast-paced fraud threats, Velera recognized the need for a strong, proactive response. The company implemented FICO Platform to elevate its automated alerting system to an intelligent, two-way, omnichannel digital communication solution. This new approach empowers cardholders to receive and respond to fraud alerts through their preferred channels, including email, SMS, and digital voice, offering enhanced security and convenience.
"Keeping pace with today’s rapidly evolving fraud landscape required a bold and strategic shift in our approach," said Adam Hodz, managing vice president, Payment & Channel Solutions at Velera. "With double and triple-digit increases in scams, smishing, vishing, phishing, AI deepfakes and consumer-engaged fraud, we are always seeking smarter, faster ways to protect our clients and their cardholders. Partnering with FICO empowered us to transform our fraud alerting capabilities, delivering real-time alerts, lowering operational costs and giving cardholders the confidence and control they need to manage their accounts securely."
Amid the complexity of integrating multiple touchpoints and managing extensive API connectivity, Velera’s strong partnership with FICO enabled the seamless migration of 715 financial institutions to the new system within just eight months—without incurring additional costs for clients. This achievement not only delivered immediate benefits but also established a robust foundation for future innovations.
Key achievements of Velera’s transformation include:
Faster Alerts: Cut fraud alert times by 85% compared to live agents.
Self-Service Efficiency: Resolved 76% of cardholders fraud alerts via SMS, email, or voice with no agent needed.
Improved Cardholder Experience: Enabled uninterrupted spending and earlier fraud detection.
Enhanced Connectivity: Increased cardholder connections by 30%—adding 170,000 monthly interactions (Using smart omnichannel capability to select the best channel – whether SMS, email, or phone).
Increased Automation: Automated 46% more outbound contacts and reduced live agent calls by 19%.
Since the launch of the intelligent customer communication solution, Velera has committed to a significant expansion into non-transactional fraud and is exploring numerous additional use cases aimed at reducing contact center volumes while enhancing hyper-personalization.
"Receiving a fraud alert is never ideal, but Velera has transformed it into a hassle-free process," said Nikhil Behl, president of Software at FICO. "By leveraging best-of-breed technology and a profound understanding of customer behavior, they've turned what could be a major disruption into a seamless, secure experience."
"We were impressed by Velera’s ability to seamlessly integrate decision intelligence into its fraud management processes," said Megha Kumar, research vice president at IDC one of the FICO Decision Awards judges. "The results speak for themselves—faster alerts, happier customers!"
Velera, formerly PSCU/Co-op Solutions, is the nation’s premier payments credit union service organization (CUSO) and an integrated financial technology solutions provider. With over four decades of industry experience and a commitment to service excellence and innovation, the company serves more than 4,000 financial institutions throughout North America, operating with velocity to help its clients keep pace with the rapid momentum of change and fuel growth in the new era of financial services. Velera leverages its expertise and resources on behalf of credit unions and their members, offering an end-to-end product portfolio that includes payment processing, fraud and risk management, data and analytics, digital banking, instant payments, strategic consulting, collections, ATM and POS networks, shared branching and 24/7/365 member support via its contact centers. For more information, visit velera.com.
About the FICO® Decision Awards
The FICO Decisions Awards recognize organisations that are achieving remarkable success using FICO solutions. A panel of independent judges with deep industry expertise evaluates nominations based upon measurable improvement in key metrics; demonstrated use of best practices; project scale, depth and breadth; and innovative uses of technology. The 2025 judges are:
Joe McKendrick, analyst and senior contributor at Forbes
Luiz Pacete, technology and marketing industry influencer
Ali Paterson, founder and editor-in-chief at Fintech Finance
Mike Roberts, head of unsecured retail risk at HSBC UK bank (Previous Winner)
Erin Stillwell, EVP, payment partnerships at Blankfactor
Allan Tan, group editor-in-chief at Cxociety
The winners of the FICO Decisions Awards will be spotlighted at and win tickets to FICO® World 2025, May 6-9, 2025, at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida.
About FICO
FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 80 countries do everything from protecting 4 billion payment cards from fraud, to improving financial inclusion, to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and has been made available in over 40 other countries, improving risk management, credit access and transparency.
