Finding identity theft in income tax fillings

Client

One of the large prepaid card issuers in the U.S.

EXL Analytics Solution

The EXL team developed a statistical scoring model for estimating the probability of a tax filing being a case of identity fraud.

Background

Client is looking at providing tax filers with an option of availing a Refund Anticipated Loan (RAL) for their tax returns through prepaid debit cards.

A huge challenge for providing RAL is the large number of identity theft cases encountered by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in U.S.

If the client provides a loan for a filing tagged by the IRS as a case of identity fraud, it can result in a monetary loss for the client.

The EXL team was tasked with identifying suspicious patterns related to identity theft to mitigate the risk of providing an RAL.

Results

• 62% Fraud capture in three deciles
• 40% Exposure loss mitigated