E-commerce sales always explode at Christmas. This year, analysts predict the highest volumes ever for online shopping – and online fraud.
Though the EU created SCA to combat online fraud, adoption has been low and retailers complain there’s too much friction involved in SCA-compliant solutions. Our last blog before Christmas looks at the problem – and a simple, safe solution that consumers will love – writes Risto Savolainen, CEO Maxa.
The season of goodwill is also the season of great sales. Some retailers can expect to book as much as 30% of annual turnover in the six weeks before the big day – add “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” into the mix and Christmas just keeps getting bigger.
The proportion of e-commerce relative to traditional retail continues to grow, too. This year, Amazon says 94% of Europeans expect to do their Christmas shopping online, with 74% saying they’ll do some in physical stores. Add in Adobe’s prediction that we’ll see a 14% rise in online shopping this Christmas, and Europe’s retailers are on course for the merriest Christmas ever.
However, rocketing rates of Card Not Present (CNP) fraud are playing Scrooge in this movie. CNP fraud is growing at between 16 to 18% a year in Europe and the US – and markets in Central and Eastern Europe are now experiencing serious hikes in CNP fraud for the first time.
The entire payments industry knows about the EU’s proposed solution – Strong Customer Authentication, or SCA. This new regulation, mandating two-factor authentication for online commerce, was supposed to come into force on 14 September this year. However, full implementation has been delayed until end of 2020, but retailers complain that some of the proposed solutions will lead to more friction for shoppers – and more cart abandonment as a result.
Instead of tokenising customer information – as 3DS v2 does – or relying on access to consumer behavioural data, which is surprisingly easy for fraudsters to replicate – we have developed a solution at iAxept which is massively popular with consumers, safe to use and, above all, removes transactional friction, instead of creating it.
Our solution, Maxa Online Contactless turns the customer’s mobile device into a POS terminal for online transactions. To confirm their payment, customers simply tap their contactless card against their mobile device when they come to an online checkout, and their transaction is complete.
One tap is all it takes – and when a Strong Customer Authentication is required – a PIN code.
Our solution is SCA compliant, based on proven technologies and fully road-tested with both consumers and merchants.
To find out more, click here to download our White Paper
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