How to prevent fraud while enhancing the consumer experience

March 15, 2023
Successful identity and fraud prevention solutions adapt and grow with the marketplace

When it comes to the online customer journey, security and IT professionals must navigate an increasingly tricky balancing act: building consumer trust and satisfying demands for simple, easy and hassle-free shopping experiences that often conflict with mitigating risk and preventing fraud.

This balancing act weighs heavily on businesses with the rapid evolution of digital technologies and the growing sophistication of scams. In fact, industry research indicates that more than 70% of businesses say that preventing fraud is their top concern.

Security software providers have responded with innovative, specialized identity point products and services that can enhance a business’ back-end fraud prevention and authentication systems. Examples range from device risk assessment to step-up verification services such as one-time passcodes and digital document verification. There are now numerous risk signals that can help a business verify its identity or detect a fraudster.

The Complexity of Battling Fraud

However, managing and optimizing these many signals creates an operational challenge. Industry research indicates that the average financial institution has more than seven integrations to external fraud and identity services.

The sheer complexity of working with numerous and varied point solutions makes it difficult for businesses to optimize their workflows and manage the inevitable overlaps between those solutions. In addition, there are significant costs associated with the extensive integration and testing required to ensure a new capability will not compromise or “break” another risk-signal solution already in place.

On the subject of costs, another challenge lies in the need for fraud prevention professionals to constantly justify any new spending, often finding themselves competing with investments that demonstrably drive business growth, such as launching a new product.

The ideal answer to address both the complex management and cost is an integrated suite of identity products and services that can offer scalable, interoperable, and future-proofed data management solutions that seamlessly interconnect with clients’ existing systems.

The result is a multi-layered fraud and identity platform that easily permits additions of point solutions, then consolidates and orchestrates both identity verification and fraud risk signals into a single view for more efficient decision-making and isolating data-driven business opportunities through segmenting, targeting, acquiring, and engaging consumers.

Integration Speeds Decision Making and Enhances the Customer Journey

Integrating fraud and identity solutions not only enhances flexibility but enables businesses to activate dynamic decision-making workflows and advanced analytics to protect consumers’ identities, in real-time, throughout the customer lifecycle.

With so many fraud prevention tools and resources available, strengthening an organization’s connectivity to products and services from a single access point — and across a variety of internal and external sources — is essential.

The capability to leverage document verification, biometrics, email- and device-risking capabilities and other risk signals strategically and seamlessly can enable a business to protect its consumers’ identities more without impairing the shopping and buying experience. Also, by incorporating an identity-driven business decision process in every brand touchpoint with every customer, the resulting customer journey becomes evidently personalized, responsive, and value-ladened.

Keeping Ahead of Fraudsters

Staying ahead of “bad actors” who misuse identity requires building and continually strengthening an enterprise-scale identity solution — one that interconnects with a business’ own unique data and systems to create attribute-rich profiles that more effectively recognize individual customers’ identities.

The data contained in these profiles extends well beyond personally identifiable information (e.g., SSN, name, address, date of birth) and even such innovative data sources as biometrics and device intelligence. It involves a level of identity awareness throughout a brand’s consumer journey, combined with much broader, multidimensional, privacy-compliant data on a consumer’s personal experience. That profound understanding of each consumer can drive continued creativity and innovation in how to recognize people, accelerate their journey, and detect fraudsters.

Ultimately, the most successful identity and fraud prevention solutions adapt and grow with the marketplace, empowering businesses to provide a powerful, positive experience to verified customers while locking out those with malicious intent. They also provide a one-stop solution to uncover data-driven business opportunities while delivering fast, personalized and seamless customer experiences — without sacrificing privacy or compromising their fraud detection.

About the author: Kathleen Peters, chief innovation officer, leads innovation and business strategy for Experian’s Decision Analytics in North America.