Black Friday and the holiday sales season are not only the prime time for businesses but also for cybercriminals. While our data revealed an increase in transactions of 35% on Black Friday 2020 alone, online payment fraud can also double up during the high time. Amid the bargain-hunting, fraudsters take advantage of the increased volume of online traffic in the form of phishing emails, financial malware, and cyber attacks attempting to steal customer details or payment information. For example, in the UK, last year's fraud rate was 385% higher than the year before, probably due to the massive growth in online shopping through the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s the same story throughout Europe.1
Black Friday 2021 and the holiday sales season are right around the corner. But great discounts and outstanding marketing campaigns aside, it is crucial to work with a partner and provider who can help maximize your digital security and effectively monitor fraud. A single cyber-attack can cost retailers an average of €185,000, consisting of loss of sales revenue, PR and marketing campaigns to restore your company’s reputation, IT repair and troubleshooting, and a team of specialists to restore the online operations.2
Recovering your system from a cyber attack can take two to four weeks in the best case, but sometimes even months. Regaining the trust of your customers can take even longer still – if they haven’t already moved on with one of your competitors.
Sad to say, this year fraudulent attempts and activities are expected to increase even more.3 To avoid Black Friday going from a retailer’s dream to the worst nightmare, you do best in investing in some must-have security features as well as partners with smart and efficient risk management practices.
PCI DSS, 3D Secure 2.0, fraud monitoring
At Multisafepay, we take security very seriously and aim to make payments easy while ensuring seamless and secure processes. We are fully PCI DSS compliant and protect your payments safe with data encryption, our advanced fraud filter, and the latest version of 3D Secure: 3D Secure 2.0. With 3D Secure 2.0, the authentication process will be integrated within the checkout and the consumer will not be redirected to the issuer bank’s website to complete the authorization. 3DS 2.0 will create a default and automated environment where credit card transactions can be assessed, controlled and managed by MultiSafepay and the issuer card bank.
In accordance with the Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2), we’re applying Strong Customer authentication (SCA) in the form of a 3D Secure protocol to all Europe-based credit card payments we process to effectively reduce the risk of fraud while promoting competition within the financial industry. By exempting recurring transactions exempt from the SCA requirements, you can benefit from features like tokenization, one-click payments, and other subscription models to boost your conversion while staying in a safe and secure environment; giving you complete control over your security, risk, and conversion journey.
We actively prevent fraud by monitoring payments and identifying and reporting any suspicious and fraudulent activities. Our risk management systems are specifically designed to accommodate merchants and partners with different needs, and our Risk Team continuously works to reduce chargeback rates and analyzes high-risk transactions and reduce chargeback rates.
The reality of channel fraud
In our last session, we discussed the rise and importance of omnichannel strategies for Black Friday. However, with new channels opening up for Black Friday bargain-hunting, new opportunities for fraud came along as well. Digital channel fraud, also called omnichannel fraud, describes fraud that occurs via digital touchpoints. Mobile fraud increased 1.3% in the first quarter of 2021, while ‘buy online and pick up in store’ fraud attacks increased by 55% in 2020 alone.4 Your webshop, social media, mobile apps, and email all offer opportunities for fraudsters - and once they stole information from one channel, they can use it to invade other channels as well.
Due to the pandemic consumers tend to opt for contactless and digital transactions and purchases even when in-person options are possible. With face-to-face operations decreasing, stronger authentication for devices and channels become inevitable. Strong authentication methods are:
- Something the customer knows (e.g., security questions, passwords, PINs)
- Something the customer has (e.g., token or code sent to their phone or email)
- Something the customer is (e.g., face, voice, or fingerprint recognition, Captcha)
Acquirer and processor
MultiSafepay acts as an acquirer and processor for credit card schemes such as VISA and Mastercard, which lets us integrate the whole payment flow end-to-end, and relying on our own infrastructure instead of using third parties. Which means we avoid redirects and handle your transactions from the moment the customer completes payments, to the settlement in your MultiSafepay balance. Ensuring higher availability and resilience, enhanced security, faster processing, and in turn, helps to maximize your conversion.
In-house development
At MultiSafepay, we own the code and develop all our integrations and features in-house. Limiting third-party influences allows us to maximize safety and security for all payment flows and processes and detect potential problems early. Our dedicated in-house development team is constantly working to help our merchants and partners grow using the most secure and reliant solutions. Ensure you have the most recent version of our integrations to access the latest security functions, avoid downtime, and optimize your business performance.
With over 20 years of experience in ecommerce and many successfully managed sales seasons under our belt, we can help you make the most of this year's Black Friday and beyond. Stay tuned for session #3 of our series to help you build the perfect checkout for Black Friday!
