How Spreedly’s Open Payment Platform Enables eCommerce Fraud Prevention

What makes eCommerce so tempting to fraudsters? 

The Merchant Risk Council (MRC) recently published its 2024 Global eCommerce Payments and Fraud Report, detailing the perceptions and trends shared by more than 1,100 merchants. According to this report, merchants use at least five fraud detection tools each to combat criminal activity. 

Interestingly, while common forms of eCommerce fraud typically include phishing emails and malware, the MRC report found first-party misuse (also called friendly fraud) to be a growing cause for concern. More than 60% of merchants reported an increase in first-party misuse disputes, with 33% experiencing friendly fraud incidents. 

Criminals often exploit the many potential vulnerabilities of digital eCommerce platforms. Combating these crimes and protecting data in your systems necessitates a fraud prevention strategy that can address specific security challenges in the eCommerce industry.  

Spreedly’s open payments platform not only optimizes transactions but simplifies fraud management and prevention as well. With Spreedly, you can reduce the technical burden of cybersecurity through advanced platform features designed with eCommerce merchants and marketplaces in mind. 

Simple fraud software integrations empower advanced fraud prevention

Addressing the threat of eCommerce fraud requires you to consider how your different digital assets interconnect. When storing customer payment information, you must consider the cyber strength of all the different vendors and tools you use alongside your own cybersecurity strategy. 

You ultimately have a choice — to either build a secure infrastructure with precise access controls yourself, or to leverage a payment platform as your payment tech layer. 

Spreedly enables eCommerce fraud prevention through seamless integrations with leading fraud software providers, such as Kount and Forter. Through the Spreedly platform, you can easily connect to a broad selection of different providers and tools that match your technical and geographic needs.

Additionally, Spreedly offers a spectrum of features to enhance your overall security, such as the Advanced Vault . Rather than relying on in-house or multi-provider vault maintenance for your stored payment credentials, advanced vaulting optimizes the entire lifecycle management process. 

Network tokenization also contributes to reducing the burden of payment security. Issued by the card networks themselves, network tokens offer a secure means for merchants to request customer payment details during transactions without putting that information at risk. 

Open payment platforms amplify transparency

Open payments, the successor of payment orchestration, combines the benefits of orchestration with the ability to connect additional value-add services to allow merchants to build out a complete payment stack.  It offers an environment in which businesses can enable many diverse connections to different providers and tools, including for the purpose of fraud prevention. 

An open payments platform clears lines of communication between you and your providers. You can enhance your operations even further by integrating fraud tools into an open payments environment.  

Spreedly’s open payments platform offers many capabilities for harmonizing your payment experiences. The Advanced Vault, for example, lets you integrate essential features like network tokenization and data enrichment to optimize your payment lifecycles. With the ability to actively manage the vault, these capabilities also provide you with crucial insights into current operational or financial inefficiencies within your payment system. 

Implementing eCommerce fraud prevention best practices at your business

Educating your employees on the warning signs of eCommerce fraud can often be a tremendous advantage for effective prevention. Simply having an understanding of the signs of fraud to watch out for can make a significant difference, with important elements to monitor including:

• New email addresses or contact information changes on customer accounts (in cases of account takeover fraud, criminals will change all contact and backup information to lock out the real account owners)
• Unusual payment activity (very low payments can indicate card testing, while high payments can indicate stolen credentials or unauthorized transactions) 
• Customers making multiple purchases with more than one payment method
• Shipping addresses that do not match the location associated with an IP address

When paired with Spreedly’s open payment technologies, a well-defined set of eCommerce fraud prevention best practices can fortify your system tenfold. These best practices should include clear policies and procedures on how to handle and verify customer data in your system. 

Key technologies and capabilities needed to combat eCommerce fraud

Fraud detection and prevention software plays a massive role in hindering attacks against your system, hence the importance of using a platform that supports multiple seamless integrations. In addition to fraud prevention software, other essential features to prioritize include:

• Multi-factor authentication
• Secure payment gateways
• Advanced data analytics 
• Chargeback and refund monitoring tools

What makes open payments and payment orchestration so beneficial for combatting eCommerce fraud is the ability to adopt a vendor-agnostic approach to payment security. Rather than being locked in with a single provider, an open payments platform gives you the flexibility to adjust your tech stack according to the specific regions of the world you’re operating in or unique payment scenarios you face. 

Tailor your approach to eCommerce fraud with Spreedly

Spreedly offers a global open payments platform designed to enhance the payment performance of merchants and marketplaces. Through a single API, Spreedly enables you to connect to leading fraud prevention software providers and other payment services. 

Book a Spreedly demo today to get started.

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