The 2014 Survey, conducted by Kount Inc., The Fraud Practice LLC and CardNotPresent.com, is purported to be the biggest survey ever undertaken focused entirely on fraud and the mobile channel, surveying more than 1000 merchants across the globe.

“After establishing the benchmark last year, the 2014 Mobile Payment & Fraud Survey shows continued development in mobile commerce and risk management initiatives as well as changes in expectations and priorities for the mobile channel,” said David Montague, president and executive consultant, The Fraud Practice LLC. “Not only are organizations now more likely to find that the fraud risk associated with the mobile channel is higher than with standard web e-commerce, but organizations are also more likely to believe the mobile channel requires additional tools for managing risk.”

Conducted from November 2013 to January 2014, the Mobile Payments and Fraud Survey had nearly 2000 participants, including merchants, service providers, acquirers, card associations and issuers. Of the 1000 merchants participating, more than half reported annual revenues exceeding $50m.

Notable merchant insights from the survey include:

• The mobile channel accounts for 20% of their business, double that of last year

• 66% of merchants surveyed now actively support mobile – up by 30% year to year

• Merchants that offer a mobile app for online shopping more than doubled from 21% to 54%, while nearly half of merchants now offer a dedicated mobile website

• 32% percent see mobile as riskier than standard e-commerce – up from 24% last year

• Merchants that believe standard e-commerce fraud processes are enough for managing mobile channel risk fell from 37 to 26 percent since the inaugural survey

• 32% say fraud prevention specific to mobile is increasingly necessary – nearly double the sentiment of last year’s responses

“Clearly mobile commerce is a source of tremendous opportunity for online retailers and their focus on this channel has grown considerably each year,” said Don Bush, vice president of Marketing at Kount. “Merchants also realize that fraud follows opportunity, and there may be no greater opportunity for fraud today than in mobile. Protecting and growing your business requires a fraud solution that integrates with all mobile platforms without any impact to the customer experience or your business.”

Regarding fraud prevention, survey respondents varied by sector and revenue size about the need for specialized tools for fraud prevention. However, more than half considered the ability to detect a mobile device as “very important” and 89 percent of respondents considered it at least “important” or “somewhat important.” Despite this sentiment, only 34.2 percent of those surveyed can detect a mobile device and merchants able to detect the specific type of mobile device decreased from last year.

Kount Inc. helps online businesses boost sales by reducing fraud and allowing them to accept more orders. Its SaaS platform is designed for companies operating in “card-not-present” environments, simplifying fraud detection and dramatically improving bottom line profitability.

The Fraud Practice provides training and consulting services on e-commerce payments, fraud prevention and credit granting.

CardNotPresent.com is an independent voice generating original news, information and education about the companies and people operating in the CNP space.

Source: Kount Inc.