New benchmark data from ACI Worldwide (NASDAQ: ACIW), a leading global provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, revealed a 13 percent increase in fraud attempts in the click and collect channel during the 2018 peak holiday season. Based on hundreds of millions of merchant transactions, including some of the UK’s leading global retail brands, click and collect also saw consumer transactions peak at 20 percent right before Christmas as shoppers bought last-minute gifts before the holiday.

“As chip-and-pin credit cards are harder for fraudsters to replicate, it is driving them toward card-not-present fraud,” said Erika Dietrich, global director, Payments Risk, ACI Worldwide. “For example, fraudsters can use stolen credit card information to make a card-not-present purchase online and then simply walk in and pick up the item in-store. It’s not enough to simply ask the consumer for their ID, but retailers should always ask shoppers who pick up their item they ordered online for their ID and the card they used to pay for the product. We’ll see fraud around click and collect grow in the coming years and merchants will need to pay more attention to their omni-channel fraud controls.”

Principal findings from the data include:

• Overall volume of purchases increased by 16 percent, while overall value increased 9 percent compared to the same period in 2017
• Click and collect transactions increased 20 percent, peaking the weekend prior to Christmas
  • Fraud attempts on click and collect increased 13 percent
• Volume of purchases increased by 27 percent while the value of purchases increased by 17 percent during the weekend after Thanksgiving (November 24 and 25) in 2018, compared to the same period in 2017
• Volume of fraud attempts increased by 1 percent, while the value of fraud attempts increased by 6 percent in 2018 compared 2017

Black Friday

• Volume of transactions on Black Friday increased 20 percent in 2018 compared to 2017
• Volume of fraud attempts on Black Friday decreased to 1.30 percent compared to 1.59 percent in 2017

Cyber Monday

• Volume of transactions on Cyber Monday increased 9 percent in 2018 compared to 2017
• Volume of fraud attempts on Cyber Monday decreased to 0.84 percent compared to 1.28 percent in 2017

“We saw genuine consumer transactions outpace fraudulent transactions this past holiday season as merchant fraud strategies kept pace in the market. In addition, merchants have become savvier as they are spreading out the volume of sales earlier in the holiday season (October through November) compared to years past, to reduce fulfilment and delivery bottlenecks,” Dietrich continued.

ACI’s UP eCommerce Payments solution offers integrated, real-time fraud management capabilities, which utilise artificial intelligence, advanced machine learning and predictive and behavioural analytics designed to maximise revenue conversion while thwarting fraudulent activity. The award-winning solution offered in ACI’s cloud is designed to scale for real-time fraud prevention at peak and high volumes.