Figures from the annual BRC Retail Crime Survey report an exponential increase in ecommerce fraud, specifically fraudulent Card Not Present (CNP) refunds. As consumers shift away from spending on the high street and adopt a proclivity for online shopping, ecommerce fraud is growing at 

twice the rate

 of ecommerce sales. It’s expected that retailers will lose around US$130 billion in digital CNP fraud between now and 2023. To combat this risk, online retailers have spent a staggering £8 million, adopting a reactive measure rather than a proactive one. However, by investing in fraud detection and prevention solutions that verifies a user’s identity and cross-references it against fraud data

before

allowing transactions, merchants can curb significant losses from fraud, according to Zac Cohen, General Manager at

Trulioo

. Zac comments:

“A data trail is at the heart of every transaction, even the fraudulent ones. If used effectively, data can expose malicious actors, especially when verifying identities at account creation. With the rise in ecommerce fraud, the use of specific data points can create barriers that prevent criminals from gaining access to ecommerce accounts, while simultaneously authorising legitimate customers to effortlessly access their accounts. In mere seconds, smart data can be referenced, verified and used to prevent fraudulent transactions – saving online retailers time, money, and resources – while allowing legitimate customers to easily and efficiently complete a purchase.”

And all of this is starting a trend where many online retailers are expanding into emerging markets around the world where mobile phones are proving an effective cost-efficient tool for identity verification.

“As ecommerce continues to grow, so too does the risk and cost of fraud. Fraudsters will always go for the easiest, fastest and most lucrative payoffs and that means targeting retail sites that do not implement vigilant, vigorous practices for verifying customers and detecting fraud. In the burgeoning ecommerce landscape of today, an agile and data-centric approach to combat fraud is the need of the hour,”

the expert concluded.