Notwithstanding EMV has lowered fraud prevention costs for most U.S. companies, fraud continues to shift online. And while merchants and retailers plan to considerably increase investment in payments to improve customer experience (by 50% over 2015), more than three quarters of these organizations view security, compliance and fraud management issues as the biggest barriers to their investment decisions.
According to a new report “2017 Global Payments Insight Survey: Merchants and Retailers,” from ACI Worldwide and Ovum, 59% of merchants and retailers plan to increase their payments investments during the next 18-24 months, up from 50% in 2015. Payments investment is high in all sectors, with 65% of travel and lodging companies reporting an increase in investment levels. About 79% of merchants and retailers view adopting an omni-channel approach as key to creating a seamless customer experience.
Also, more than 80% of U.S. merchants and retailers report EMV has lowered their fraud prevention costs. Merchants and retailers increasingly expect payments investment to improve the customer experience, but more than 75% indicate security and compliance are the biggest barrier to payments initiatives.
Although 52% of merchants and retailers say their CNP losses are growing, 70% say they are satisfied with their CNP fraud prevention tools
ACI notes while the U.S. adoption of EMV has lowered in-store fraud costs and shifted fraudulent activity online, merchants must remain vigilant about preventing card not present fraud.
Although there isn’t one path to payments modernization for merchants and retailers, the benefits of investing in new and alternative payments methods are increasing—in terms of both merchants’ bottom lines and overall improvement of customer experience.
Ovum says to stay competitive in this changing retail market, merchants and retailers must foster strong payment partnerships with companies that not only understand their market verticals, but can also help them both improve their omni-channel capabilities and reach new customers.
