Retail Decisions (ReD) has announced ReD Fraud Alert, a service which enables issuers and merchants to exchange cardholder data and transaction histories to identify suspicious activity.

In recent trials, ReD Fraud Alert reduced merchant chargebacks by 43 per cent. Using information normally exclusive to the issuer; a channel is created enabling its merchants to use a customer's full account profile to decide whether to accept or reject a transaction for items with a high-ticket price.

The service works by sending a daily automated file containing details of high-risk purchases to the issuer and, if any suspicious activity appears on the customer's account, the issuer calls the cardholder to verify the transaction. Information is then automatically sent back to ReD to authenticate the purchase, reducing the authentication time from 38 days to 36 hours.