Fraud prevention and digital trust are quickly becoming essential components for all businesses undergoing a digital transformation journey. The ability to deliver the desired level of customer experience to capture and retain customers is also required. 

To learn how Equifax’s acquisition of Kount can help businesses undergoing digital innovation balance fraud prevention and digital trust, PaymentsJournal sat down with Brad Wiskirchen, SVP and GM at Kount, and Tim Sloane, VP of Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group.

Businesses are eager to innovate. Even so, Javelin Research has found that 42% of businesses say digital fraud slows their expansion into new digital services and channels.

Historically, there has been fear and trepidation among merchants around how to strike the balance between innovation and fraud. If too much friction is introduced into the process, conversion rates could drop, leading to a drop in revenue. But, by leveraging data, it is possible to innovate without compromising security. 

“Data really allows businesses to increase revenue opportunities via customized cross-sells [and] upsells, sending end consumers down the appropriate funnel depending on their experience with the retailers,” said Wiskirchen. “So although people were initially worried about injecting friction in their process, I think what they’re recognizing is that this is a unique opportunity to learn more about their consumers in real time and provide them with better services.”

For some merchants, online innovation became a means to survive over the past year. “When COVID came along all of [the] sudden, they had to build out and enable that online presence and then start thinking about purchase ahead for pickup, which… introduces new processes into their organization as well as new vectors for fraud,” explained Sloane.  

Wiskirchen agreed, adding that, “there was a lot of trepidation, but that was easily overcome once [companies] recognized the differentiated data they are able to access as a result of these new fraud control efforts.”