Fraud Costs Increased More Than 10% over Pre-Pandemic Levels for APAC Businesses, According to LexisNexis Risk Solutions Study

07/07/2022

ASIA PACIFIC — LexisNexis® Risk Solutions released the latest Asia-Pacific edition of the LexisNexis® True Cost of Fraud™ Study, which surveyed 387 risk and fraud executives in Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The study analyzed fraud trends in retail, ecommerce, financial services and lending industries and spotlights key pain points related to new digital payment methods and transaction channels.

The study found the cost of fraud rose 10% - 16% across APAC from 2019 pre-pandemic levels. The LexisNexis Fraud Multiplier™ determined that for every U.S. $1 lost to fraud costs the organization an average of $3.99, compared to $3.50 in 2019. The cost of fraud per transaction was higher than average, costing digital banks and alternative lenders $6.33. Other new payment channels, such as buy now pay later (BNPL) and digital wallets, cost businesses $4.75 for every dollar lost to fraud.

Fraudsters evolved tactics in parallel with the changes in consumer behavior brought on by the pandemic. A recent Cybercrime Report showed consumers made a significant shift to mobile transactions, which now accounts for 75% of all transaction traffic globally. While in-person transactions remain the most popular point-of-sale channel, fraud occurs more in online channels than mobile channels. Within the mobile channel, 34% of fraud occurs through mobile web browsers.  

• Fraudsters Target Alternative Finance Providers – Competition in the BNPL market is accelerating globally, led by local, homegrown players across markets, according to the study. BNPL providers recorded a 65% jump in new account creations, which aligns with the strong growth in remote online and mobile transactions. However, BNPL providers also account for more than one-tenth of payment losses, which is disproportionately higher than the average volume of transactions through other payment channels.
• Identity Verification Challenges – The top contributor to fraud losses for businesses remains the inability to identify synthetic identities and verifying and authenticating identities using attributes such as phone numbers, email addresses, behavioral analysis and devices. Ecommerce merchants in particular find identity verification challenging since it requires finding a balance between providing a seamless customer experience and implementing step-up authentication and security measures.
• Adoption of a Fraud Management Framework – Almost all digital banks and alternative finance providers including BNPL and digital wallets have not yet fully integrated cybersecurity and operations into fraud prevention processes. Findings also show that organizations are not widely using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) models for fraud detection, weakening mitigation efforts. Percentage of organizations using various capabilities to fight fraud:
  • Rules-based Approaches – 52%
  • Crowdsourcing – 36%
  • Social Media Intelligence – 33%
  • Cybersecurity Alerts – 25%
  • AI/ML Models – 21%

“Organizations are fighting a tough battle against fraudsters in the new normal,” said Thanh Tai, director of fraud and identity strategy, LexisNexis Risk Solutions. “Fraud is sophisticated and evolving exceedingly fast. We are seeing a high volume of fraud attempts following a continued shift towards digital channels spurred by the pandemic. This means businesses must integrate a fraud detection and prevention approach with both physical and digital identity attributes to enhance customer experience, stay competitive and avoid losses.”

The True Cost of Fraud APAC study surveyed 387 risk and fraud executives in retail, ecommerce and financial services/lending across Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Data collection occurred during February/March 2022 and survey questions reference the past 12 months.

Download a copy of the True Cost of Fraud Study – APAC Edition or register to attend the LexisNexis Risk Solutions True Cost of Fraud APAC webinar on Tuesday, 19 July, 11am SGT to learn more.

About LexisNexis Risk Solutions
LexisNexis^® Risk Solutions harnesses the power of data, sophisticated analytics platforms and technology solutions to provide insights that help businesses across multiple industries and governmental entities reduce risk and improve decisions to benefit people around the globe. Headquartered in metro Atlanta, Georgia, we have offices throughout the world and are part of RELX (LSE: REL/NYSE: RELX), a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers. For more information, please visit LexisNexis Risk Solutions and RELX.