EXCLUSIVE—Preventing fraud is an ongoing battle, and Mastercard wants to make it a little easier for card issuers with the launch of its Early Fraud Detection System.

The system, announced by the payment processor today, will allow FIs and other card issuers to create a greater net of protection for card customers. It does so by allowing issuers to set up “early warnings” to prevent or at least contain losses when fraudsters and hackers capture financial data.

The system uses predictive analytics in tandem with internal Mastercard data (as well as other external data sources) to find “at risk” cards; the system will then determine the level of risk and subsequently alert the issuer. The issuer can then use this early alert to decide what course of action is best to contain the fraud.

“Knowledge is power,” Ajay Bhalla, president of enterprise risk and security at Mastercard, noted in a company statement. Bhalla said in his statement:

Our issuers can now proactively target the fraudulent activity resulting from previously breached or hacked data, helping them reduce costs and maintain the best possible cardholder experience.

Mastercard’s Early Detection System appears only a month after the well-documented hack of credit card reporting agency Equifax, which resulted in 143 million consumers having their financial data stolen or comprised.

The company’s system is aimed at protecting customer data, following a rash of new systems and proposals around the safety of financial data since the hack. Google, for instance, has also launched a “Advanced Protection Program” which will provide advanced security to those who have a “higher than average” concern about digital security.

Once posted by fraudsters on the dark web, it can take as little as nine minutes from that posting time for stolen information to be used, according to data by Mastercard.

Bank Innovation reached out to Mastercard for comment.