Is Your Fraud Prevention Strategy a Competitive Differentiator? It ...

In recent years, consumer confidence has largely been driven by how secure customers feel when they purchase goods or services on a particular website. According to CIFAS, the UK?s fraud prevention service, Internet security may soon be having a greater impact on the organizations that consumers choose to do business with.

In the article, ?Account takeover fraud continues to rise relentlessly,? CIFAS chief executive, Peter Hurst, said online merchants should take note of the fact that with online fraud on the rise, their security track record could become a key selling point for earning new business in the future.

?Businesses that manage to combine convenience with strong security protocols are those that will both prosper and come to be trusted by their customers. Internet security has the potential to become a key factor in the way that consumers choose who to transact with.?

These conclusions stem from recent figures released by CIFAS, which found that hijacking bank, credit cards and other accounts is becoming one of the most prevalent fraud threats to organizations and individuals. Some of the numbers that verify this stance included:

• 71% of all account takeovers in the UK from January to April 2012 occurred online.
• Account takeover fraud rose 82% in the first four months of 2012 compared to the same period last year.
• The takeover of plastic card accounts (mostly credit cards) nearly doubled since the first four months of 2011, and accounts for more than 40% of all account takeovers in the UK.

Richard Hurley, Communications Manager at CIFAS, said the convenience of the Internet continues to play a significant role in the way criminals defraud businesses.

?The Internet did not create fraud, but the convenience and ease it offers honest individuals is also available to fraudsters. Furthermore, with so many accounts now operated online (and frauds committed in the same way) it is likely that the internet is the channel being used by criminals to obtain the data required to commit these frauds.?

This poses an important security challenge for today?s businesses: protect your customers or risk losing them.

With Internet security having a greater influence on an organization?s ability to retain existing customers, as well as attract new ones, having effective security tools in place could become a significant differentiator for companies that do business over the Internet.

A fraud prevention solution like iovation?s ReputationManager 360 gives online businesses an exceptional layer of defense that helps stop online crimes such as credit card fraud, identity theft, and account takeovers, among many others. Through advanced device identification uniquely recognizing the devices connecting to online businesses (not the stolen information fraudsters often use to answer security questions and take over accounts), iovation helps businesses prevent account takeovers and protect their customers and accounts, and in doing so, improve customer retention and brand reputation.

Tags: account takeovers, CIFAS, consumer trust, credit card fraud, customer retention, internet security, iovation, Online Fraud, ReputationManager 360

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2012 at 8:00 am and is filed under Financial Services, Online Communities, Online Retail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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