Over 20 per cent of Fraudulent Purchases in the US come from Mobile

mobile payments nfc cashMobile commerce is bigger business than ever, and this has had the unfortunate side effect of meaning the fraud using mobile phones has never been more prevalent, with 21 per cent of fraudulent purchases in the US made using payments via app, mobile site or mobile wallet.

The figure, which comes from a new study by LexisNexis, also suggests that mobiles are being used disproportionately for fraud, as only 14 per cent of all transactions are made using mobile.

Revenue lost by mCommerce merchants in 2014 increased 70 per cent year on year, hitting 1.36 per cent of total revenue, compared to 0.8 per cent in 2013. This was higher than the average loss seen by merchants, which increased to 0.68 in 2014 from 0.51 the year before.

The complexity of many mobile payment channels, coupled with managing multiple channels at the same time, produces more avenues for fraudsters to take advantage of. Merchants are struggling to cope with the costs of fraud via mobile, with every $100 of fraud costing merchants $334 according to LexisNexis calculations.

“Mobile commerce is going to be more widely adopted by merchants because customers are clamoring for the convenience,” said Dennis Becker, vice president of corporate markets for LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “To reduce customer friction and sell more through the mobile channel, now is the time for mCommerce retailers to put in place fraud prevention tools to counter the disproportionate amount of fraud that is currently occurring.”