What is credit card monitoring?

Credit card monitoring is a service that tracks credit card activity and user behaviour to identify possible identity theft and fraud. It includes alerts for changes in credit reports, such as new accounts, hard inquiries, high balances or missed payments. This can aid in the early detection of fraud.

Additionally, it provides insights into credit score trends and factors affecting them. Some services also offer dark web monitoring to identify compromised personal information and identity theft protection, including insurance and resolution support. Credit card monitoring is essential for individuals and organisations to safeguard against fraud and maintain financial integrity.

Credit card monitoring vs. credit monitoring

Credit card monitoring and credit monitoring are two distinct services designed to help individuals and organisations protect their financial health, but they focus on different aspects of credit management.

Credit card monitoring specifically tracks activity related to a user’s credit card accounts. It provides notifications for any unusual or suspicious transactions, such as atypical spending habits, multiple transactions in a short period or purchases made in unfamiliar locations. The primary purpose is to identify and stop unapproved credit card use.

On the other hand, credit monitoring provides a broader overview of a card user’s credit profile. It involves tracking credit reports from major credit bureaus (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion), encompassing credit cards, loans and mortgages. This services notifies individuals of significant changes, such as new accounts opened in their name, hard inquiries on their credit file, modifications to credit limit or updates to personal or business information. Credit monitoring helps detect identity theft and errors in credit reports, allowing individuals and organisations to take timely action to maintain accurate credit reports.

Credit card monitoring for private and company cards

In addition to individuals, organisations that rely heavily on private credit cards and company cards for various business operations should also be concerned about credit card monitoring. This includes corporations, small businesses, non-profits and government entities that use commercial cards for travel, entertainment, purchasing and fleet management.

Corporations often issue company credit cards to employees for business expenses. Monitoring these cards is crucial to prevent unauthorised transactions, ensure compliance with company policies and detect potential fraud. Effective credit card monitoring helps maintain financial integrity and protects the organisation from financial losses.

Small businesses can also benefit from credit card monitoring. With fewer resources to absorb the impact of fraud, monitoring helps identify suspicious transactions early, allowing for prompt action to mitigate risks and safeguard the business’s financial health.

Likewise, non-profits and government entities using credit cards for operational expenses and procurement must ensure that funds are used appropriately and efficiently. Credit card monitoring helps maintain financial integrity and accountability, ensuring that resources are not misused, and that any fraudulent activity is quickly addressed.

Credit monitoring vs. identity theft protection

Credit monitoring and identity theft protection are related, but distinct, services for safeguarding financial well-being and personal or sensitive information.

Credit monitoring focuses on tracking changes in credit reports. This service alerts users to activities such as new accounts being opened, credit inquiries or significant changes in credit scores. By keeping a close watch on credit reports from major bureaus, credit monitoring helps detect potential fraud early and enabling individuals and organisations to take corrective action to protect their credit standing.

In contrast, identity theft protection offers a more comprehensive approach to safeguarding personal and business information. This service not only monitors credit reports but also scans for suspicious activities across various platforms, including online bank accounts, credit card accounts and even the dark web. Identity theft protection services alert users to potential breaches and provide assistance with recovery if identity theft occurs. This includes monitoring for the misuse of personal information such as Social Security numbers, bank account details and other sensitive data. Credit monitoring is a key tool for detecting credit-related fraud and the early signs of identity theft.

Importance of credit card monitoring

Credit card monitoring is a critical tool for organisations, playing a key role in both fraud prevention and ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. By continuously tracking credit card transactions, organisations can quickly identify and respond to suspicious activities, such as unauthorised purchases or unusual spending patterns. This proactive approach helps prevent financial losses and protects the organisation’s reputation.

Beyond fraud prevention, credit card monitoring is an essential component of AML compliance. Financial institutions and other regulated entities are legally obligated to monitor transactions to detect and report any activities that may indicate money laundering. Effective credit card monitoring systems can identify red flags, such as large cash deposits, frequent international transactions or multiple small transactions designed to evade detection.

By maintaining robust credit card monitoring practices, organisations not only reduce their risk exposure and avoid regulatory penalties, they also contribute to the broader effort of combating financial crimes.

Apps, services and software solutions for credit card monitoring

There are various apps, services and software solutions available for credit card monitoring, each offering unique features to help organisations and individuals track and manage their credit card activity.

For individuals, there are credit bureau apps, such as Experian’s, which offers a free app that checks credit reports from Experian, and a premium plan that checks reports from each of three credit bureaus, including Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. Many banks and credit card issuers have built-in monitoring features within their mobile apps. These often include real-time alerts for transactions and the ability to flag suspicious activity.

For organisations, there are transaction monitoring tools designed to automatically track and analyse transactions, helping to detect suspicious activities and ensure compliance with AML regulations. There are also real-time transaction monitoring solutions for both virtual and physical cards, allowing organisations to track spending, manage receipt collection and handle accounting tasks.

Financial organisations: how to detect suspicious activity on credit cards

Financial organisations employ a variety of methods to detect suspicious activity on credit cards, ensuring the security of their clients’ accounts and compliance with regulatory requirements.

These methods include:

  • Real-time transaction monitoring – AI-driven systems analyse transactions in real-time, looking for unusual patterns or behaviours, such as monitoring for large purchases, multiple transactions in a short period or transactions from unexpected locations 
  • Behavioural analysis – By understanding the typical spending habits of cardholders, financial institutions can identify deviations that may indicate fraud, e.g., a sudden spike in high-value transactions or purchases in a foreign country
  • Geolocation tracking – Monitoring the geographical location of a transaction can helps detect anomalies – a card being used in two distant locations within a short time frame may indicate fraudulent activity 
  • Machine learning models – These models continuously learn from transaction data to improve the accuracy of fraud detection, identifying complex patterns and predicting potential fraud before it occurs 
  • Customer alerts – Sending alerts to customers for transactions that appear suspicious allows them to approve or deny the transaction, providing an additional layer of security 

FAQs

What is credit card monitoring?

Credit card monitoring is a service that tracks activity on credit card accounts and issues alerts when unusual or potentially suspicious transactions are detected. This enables individuals and organisations to respond quickly to signs of fraud or unauthorised use, helping to protect financial assets and maintain account security.

How do credit card companies detect suspicious activity?

Credit card providers use advanced fraud detection systems to analyse transactions in real time. These systems employ artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify unusual patterns, such as high-value purchases, transactions from unexpected locations or deviations from typical spending behaviour. When flagged, alerts are issued so that cardholders – whether individuals or businesses – can verify the legitimacy of the activity and take corrective action if needed.

What does credit monitoring service do?

A credit monitoring service tracks changes to credit reports issued by major credit bureaus. These services provide alerts when significant events occur, such as the opening of new credit accounts, hard inquiries, changes to credit scores or updates to personal or business information. For both individuals and organisations, credit monitoring offers a proactive way to detect identity theft, unauthorised credit activity and errors in credit records.

What is the difference between credit monitoring and identity monitoring?

Credit monitoring is focused specifically on tracking changes to credit reports, such as new accounts, credit checks or score fluctuations. Identity monitoring, on the other hand, takes a broader view, scanning for signs of identity misuse across a wider range of data sources. These may include online accounts, credit card usage and activity on the dark web. Identity monitoring services often include alerting mechanisms and recovery support to help individuals and businesses mitigate damage and restore their security in the event of a breach.

Credit card monitoring and Silobreaker

While credit card monitoring services typically focus on credit card fraud, organisations also require broader situational awareness to detect emerging threats, fraudulent activity and financial crime in real time. However, sifting through large volumes of data and false positives to identify genuine threats can overwhelm threat intelligence teams and lead to missed intelligence.

Silobreaker adds critical value here, supporting fraud prevention and credit card monitoring efforts by aggregating and analysing vast volumes of open-source intelligence (OSINT), dark web content and industry reporting. By taking a multi-faceted approach to tracking cybercrime and fraud, monitoring for compromised credential leaks, card fraud, brand abuse and impersonation, initial access brokers and new fraud techniques, Silobreaker helps fraud teams identify early warning signs of risk and compromise.

This broader intelligence-led approach enables organisations to strengthen their credit card monitoring capabilities, meet compliance obligations and take proactive steps to mitigate risk – protecting sensitive data, financial integrity and brand reputation.