Fraud investigation for AI-driven scams
Visa Protect is a transaction scoring model turned fraud investigation platform. In 2023, it surfaced 54% more fraud than banks’ internal systems in a UK pilot. In 2024, Visa’s CPO announced its first beta client in Argentina.
As the first product designer, I owned the 0 → 1 design of Visa Protect from internal tool to monetized product (2024)
Timeline
June - Dec 2024,
Live in 5 countries
Team
1 product manager
2 data engineers
Contributions
Interaction design
Accessible data visualization
Design system upgrade
problem
Fraud analysts spend 2-3 weeks manually investigating transaction patterns while AI-driven scams evolve in days.
Small-to-medium banks lack the tools to fight back. Their analysts piece together thousands of transactions across spreadsheets and disconnected systems—by the time they catch the fraud, millions are gone.
“While AI flags risky transactions in real time, follow-up analysis can take a few days up to many weeks.”
👎🏽 cluttered legends
👎🏽 unnecessary colors
👎🏽 duplicated content
👎🏽 technical jargon
original interface
DESIGN CHALLENGE
HMW help fraud analysts investigate complex payments scams in minutes instead of weeks?
Faster investigation means stopping scams before money disappears—potentially saving millions per incident and preventing billions in global losses.
solution
I designed Visa Protect’s first interface for clients from 0→1.
This product detected 73% of fraud value in Argentina and is estimated to save ~$460M for the UK payments industry!
Starting an investigation
Start with an account or transaction number, narrow by date or amount range
Fraud labeling
Tag transactions anytime during your investigation
graph settings
graph filters
Account type nodes
Confirmed fraud
Reported fraud
Confirmed not fraud
IMPACT
My designs helped Visa Protect grow from an internal tool to a monetized product live in 5 countries.
Some wins:
🎉 Product was demoed at 2000-person payments conferences in the UK
🎉 Shoutout at Visa Payments Forum 2024 and 2025
✅ Continued design support + new dedicated research team
✅ Quarterly design strategy workshop
✅ Engineering team has component library for product
“This looks miles better than even a couple months ago.
I enjoy the user of color, shapes, and stuff like that.”
— Payments fintech, Argentina
73%
Fraud value detected in Argentina
~$460M
Savings for UK payments industry
1→5
Countries product is live in
reflection
Learnings as a technical product designer
👤 Becoming your user
For such a technical problem space, using the product myself was key to truly empathizing with user needs. I used the live product at least a few times a week, and worked closely with devs to make sure QA matched the designs.
⚙ Influencing through prototyping
For this project, interactive prototypes definitely helped over static mocks. Learn your squad’s communication styles and bring good energy! My PM and I brainstormed in the office weekly, while the engineers preferred detailed Teams messages and ad-hoc calls.
🗣️ Accessible data visualization
As the only dedicated designer on this project, I took initiative to get feedback from content, data visualization, and accessibility to create the best designs. By attending office hours and recruiting short-term help, I got timely feedback without constraining resources.
Kind words from my colleagues
“Thank you Diya for the amazing work on designing the new network graph layout! It looks amazing and I appreciate you going out of your way to interview other users, incorporating feedback, and iterating with product and tech input.”
Loren Martinez
Product Manager @ Visa
“Thank you Diya for being an amazing design partner. Your dedication and continued support has helped move the project forward and strengthened design’s relationship with our product partners.”
Jane Behrman
Design Manager @ Visa
“From the beginning, Diya was meticulous and communicated often and early. She was a great sounding board while mapping the fraud journey, and her insights provided valuable feedback on the final deliverable.”
Elisa Arango
UX Researcher @ Visa
Check out my other work ☻
