Integrating Explainable AI in Financial Fraud Detection Systems for Enhanced Decision Transparency
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63282/3050-922X.IJERET-V6I4P113Keywords:
Explainable AI, Fraud Detection, Financial Security, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, PCAAbstract
The high rate of development of digital financial services has increased the vulnerability of financial systems to fraud. Despite the effect of traditional machine learning models on fraud detection, it is often not flexible and transparent to the evolving financial landscape and regulatory requirements. This research paper is a description of a new way of detecting financial fraud and is more effective than the previous one. It uses the Kaggle credit card data that comprises over 284,000 transactions yet only 492 frauds. The data set was preprocessed in different ways, like label encoding, Min–Max normalization, PCA-based feature selection, SMOTE balancing, and other methods, and then the models were trained. Two significant models, Decision Tree and Multilayer Perceptron, were developed and compared with the existing models (GBM, ANN, LR, NB) on the measurements of accuracy (ACC), precision (PRE), recall (REC), and F1-score (F1). MLP performed optimally with the highest accuracy of 99.52% and the DT model performed optimally in recall and F1-score since it could effectively detect fraudulent cases. SHAP and LIME were the keys to explaining the determinants of the model processing by the use of explanatory AI technologies. Overall, the results revealed that the accuracy of predictions and reproducibility are the cornerstones of building effective fraud detection systems in the finance sector, where the real-life context is vital
References
[1] K. G. Al-Hashedi and P. Magalingam, “Financial fraud detection applying data mining techniques: A comprehensive review from 2009 to 2019,” 2021. doi: 10.1016/j.cosrev.2021.100402.
[2] R. Q. Majumder, “A Review of Anomaly Identification in Finance Frauds Using Machine Learning Systems,” Int. J. Adv. Res. Sci. Commun. Technol., pp. 101–110, Apr. 2025, doi: 10.48175/IJARSCT-25619.
[3] H. Kali, “Optimizing Credit Card Fraud Transactions Identification and Classification in Banking Industry Using Machine Learning Algorithms,” Int. J. Recent Technol. Sci. Manag., vol. 9, no. 11, pp. 85–96, 2024.
[4] A. Parupalli, “Business Intelligence in ERP ML-Based Comparative Study for Financial Forecasting,” ESP Int. J. Commun. Eng. Electron. Technol., vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 17–26, 2024, doi: 10.56472/25839217/IJCEET-V2I4P103.
[5] S. J. Wawge, “A Survey on the Identification of Credit Card Fraud Using Machine Learning with Precision, Performance, and Challenges,” Int. J. Innov. Sci. Res. Technol., vol. 10, no. 4, pp. 3345–3352, May 2025, doi: 10.38124/ijisrt/25apr1813.
[6] K. Lee and D. Choi, “An Artificial Intelligence Approach to Financial Fraud Detection under IoT Environment : A Survey and Implementation,” Secur. Commun. Networks, 2018.
[7] V. Verma, “Deep Learning-Based Fraud Detection in Financial Transactions: A Case Study Using Real-Time Data Streams,” ESP J. Eng. Technol. Adv., vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 149–157, 2023, doi: 10.56472/25832646/JETA-V3I8P117.
[8] S. Farsi and M. Chowdhury, “EcomFraudEX: An Explainable Machine Learning Framework for Victim-Centric and Dual-Sided Fraud Incident Classification in E-Commerce,” ICST Trans. Scalable Inf. Syst., vol. 12, 2025, doi: 10.4108/eetsis.6789.
[9] S. Jagdish, M. Singh, and V. Yadav, “Credit Card Fraud Detection System: A Survey,” J. Xidian Univ., vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 5498 – 5505, May 2020, doi: 10.37896/jxu14.5/599.
[10] H. P. Kapadia, “API-Driven Banking: How COVID-19 Remote Work Boosted Open Banking and Fintech Integrations,” J. Emerg. Technol. Innov. Res., vol. 8, no. 10, pp. f514–f519, 2021.
[11] S. B. Shah, “Advancing Financial Security with Scalable AI: Explainable Machine Learning Models for Transaction Fraud Detection,” in 2025 4th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Electrical Circuits and Electronics (ICDCECE), 2025, pp. 1–7. doi: 10.1109/ICDCECE65353.2025.11034838.
[12] B. R. Ande, “Federated Learning and Explainable AI for Decentralized Fraud Detection in Financial Systems,” J. Inf. Syst. Eng. Manag., vol. 10, no. 35s, pp. 48–56, 2025.
[13] N. Malali, “Exploring Artificial Intelligence Models for Early Warning Systems with Systemic Risk Analysis in Finance,” in 2025 International Conference on Advanced Computing Technologies (ICoACT), IEEE, Mar. 2025, pp. 1–6. doi: 10.1109/ICoACT63339.2025.11005357.
[14] P. Hou et al., “Technology and practice of intelligent governance for financial data security,” Chinese J. Netw. Inf. Secur., 2023, doi: 10.11959/j.issn.2096-109x.2023048.
[15] M. A. K. Azad, A. B. M. Y. Arafat, A. K. M. Masum, Y. Islam, M. M. Hassan, and D. M. Farid, “An Optimized Ensemble Learning Framework for Credit Card Fraud Detection with Explainable AI,” in 2025 International Conference on Quantum Photonics, Artificial Intelligence, and Networking (QPAIN), 2025, pp. 1–6. doi: 10.1109/QPAIN66474.2025.11171906.
[16] A. F. Sariat, I. J. Siddique, M. Hossain, M. M. Islam, and T. Rahman, “AI Driven Fraud Detection in Financial Ecosystems: A Hybrid Machine Learning Framework,” in 2025 International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Communication Engineering (ECCE), 2025, pp. 1–8. doi: 10.1109/ECCE64574.2025.11013808.
[17] A. Kasoju and T. chary Vishwakarma, “Leveraging Explainable AI and Reinforcement Learning for Enhanced Transparency in Adaptive Fraud Detection,” in 2024 IEEE 8th Conference on Energy Internet and Energy System Integration (EI2), 2024, pp. 103–108. doi: 10.1109/EI264398.2024.10991389.
[18] M. Dhasaratham, Z. A. Balassem, J. Bobba, R. Ayyadurai, and S. M. Sundaram, “Attention Based Isolation Forest Integrated Ensemble Machine Learning Algorithm for Financial Fraud Detection,” in 2024 International Conference on Intelligent Algorithms for Computational Intelligence Systems (IACIS), 2024, pp. 1–5. doi: 10.1109/IACIS61494.2024.10721649.
[19] S. Rallapalli, D. Hegde, and R. Thatikonda, “Feature Selection Based Ensemble Support Vector Machine for Financial Fraud Detection in IoT,” in 2023 International Conference on Evolutionary Algorithms and Soft Computing Techniques, EASCT 2023, 2023. doi: 10.1109/EASCT59475.2023.10392566.
[20] A. Maurya and A. Kumar, “Credit card fraud detection system using machine learning technique,” in Proceedings - 2022 IEEE International Conference on Cybernetics and Computational Intelligence, CyberneticsCom 2022, 2022. doi: 10.1109/CyberneticsCom55287.2022.9865466.
[21] M. B. Islam, C. Avornu, P. K. Shukla, and P. K. Shukla, “Cost Reduce: Credit Card Fraud Identification Using Machine Learning,” in 7th International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems, ICCES 2022 - Proceedings, 2022. doi: 10.1109/ICCES54183.2022.9835811.
[22] S. Patil, V. Nemade, and P. K. Soni, “Predictive Modelling for Credit Card Fraud Detection Using Data Analytics,” in Procedia Computer Science, 2018. doi: 10.1016/j.procs.2018.05.199.
[23] W. Priatna, H. D. Purnomo, A. Iriani, I. Sembiring, and T. Wellem, “Optimizing Multilayer Perceptron with Cost-Sensitive Learning for Addressing Class Imbalance in Credit Card Fraud Detection Wowon,” Decree Dir. Gen. High. Educ. Res. Technol., vol. 8, no. 158, pp. 2–9, 2024.
[24] A. Tomy and I. P. Ojo, “Explainable AI for credit card fraud detection: Bridging the gap between accuracy and interpretability,” World J. Adv. Res. Rev., vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 1246–1256, Feb. 2025, doi: 10.30574/wjarr.2025.25.2.0492.
[25] H. Hajiyev, E. Hajiyev, M. Avezov, S. Makhmudov, D. Abdukhalikova, and E. L. Lydia, “An Explainable AI-based Fraud Detection System Using Recursive Feature Elimination and Waterwheel Plant Optimization for Financial Transactions,” Eng. Technol. Appl. Sci. Res., vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 28114–28119, 2025, doi: 10.48084/etasr.13350.
[26] M. N. Alatawi, “Detection of fraud in IoT based credit card collected dataset using machine learning,” Mach. Learn. with Appl., vol. 19, Mar. 2025, doi: 10.1016/j.mlwa.2024.100603.
[27] E. Ileberi, Y. Sun, and Z. Wang, “A Machine Learning Based Credit Card Fraud Detection Using The GA Algorithm For Feature Selection,” J. Big Data, vol. 9, no. 24, Dec. 2022, doi: 10.1186/s40537-022-00573-8.