Analysis of Ensemble Machine Learning Models for Fraud Detection

Recent developments in electronic payment and e-commerce have led to a rise in digital fraud cases, including credit card fraud. Within the financial services industry, identifying credit card fraud is still a difficult task that can have significant effects on consumers' and financial institutions' reputations. Therefore, it is crucial to implement systems capable of detecting credit card fraud. This research utilizes the European Cardholder Data Collection to assess the efficacy of ensemble machine learning techniques in identifying credit card fraud. The European cardholder data set is subjected to a rigorous assessment and evaluation of series of machine learning models, such as Gradient Boosting, Random Forest and CAT Boost, to detect fraudulent transactions. It has been noted that the dataset is unbalanced, which may indicate that the models' performance is not very ideal. The study suggests using data sampling strategies to achieve a balanced distribution of data across various algorithms that yield optimal outcomes. The main goal is to identify the model that performs best for machine learning classification problems by comparing the performance of different models. The results of this study will support further initiatives to improve credit card transaction security and lower financial losses brought on by fraud.