Credit card fraud remains a significant challenge, with financial losses and consumer protection at stake. This study addresses the need for practical, real-time fraud detection methodologies. Using a Kaggle credit card dataset, I tackle class imbalance using the Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE) to enhance modeling efficiency. I compare several machine learning algorithms, including Logistic Regression, Linear Discriminant Analysis, K-nearest Neighbors, Classification and Regression Tree, Naive Bayes, Support Vector, Random Forest, XGBoost, and Light Gradient-Boosting Machine to classify transactions as fraud or genuine. Rigorous evaluation metrics, such as AUC, PRAUC, F1, KS, Recall, and Precision, identify the Random Forest as the best performer in detecting fraudulent activities. The Random Forest model successfully identifies approximately 92% of transactions scoring 90 and above as fraudulent, equating to a detection rate of over 70% for all fraudulent transactions in the test dataset. Moreover, the model captures more than half of the fraud in each bin of the test dataset. SHAP values provide model explainability, with the SHAP summary plot highlighting the global importance of individual features, such as “V12” and “V14”. SHAP force plots offer local interpretability, revealing the impact of specific features on individual predictions. This study demonstrates the potential of machine learning, particularly the Random Forest model, for real-time credit card fraud detection, offering a promising approach to mitigate financial losses and protect consumers.
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