When it comes to managing card programs, an ongoing challenge is how to identify and minimize card abuse and misuse.

Fraud detection technology by itself does not address how to help companies identify employees who may not be using their cards in accordance with company card usage policies. Recognizing the powerful role technology can play to minimize card abuse and misuse, MasterCard has Ariston.

Ariston is a rule-based software solution that allows corporations to define a set of rules related to unacceptable card use. Corporations are then able to identify incidents of possible fraud and when payment cards are not being used in accordance with card usage policies.

For some organizations, card misuse is a more troublesome problem than fraud. When employees use payment cards for purposes other than those for which they were intended, the organizational efficiencies card programs can bring are compromised. Until recently, tracking down incidents of card misuse was, at best, an arduous process.

Thanks to MasterCard, Ariston allows users to define a set of rules or criteria related to unacceptable card use. If a transaction or series of transactions meet these criteria, Ariston highlights transactions for further review. Subscribers to Ariston can feed any MasterCard transaction data into the system to determine whether cards are being used in accordance with company guidelines. Importantly, Ariston can also accept non-monetary data, an extremely useful capability for spotting cases of potential account takeover or identity theft.