Businesses must deepen fraud detection as more transactions are now moving online and e-commerce becomes mainstream.

According to the outgoing chief security information officer at Pesalink Stacy Chege, online fraud is now a major threat to Kenya’s economy and personal financial security.

Speaking at a forum on fraud, Stacy said merchants must now safeguard themselves and their customers against online payment fraud by integrating payment gateways.

“With the digital economy evolving rapidly, businesses of all sizes need to re-evaluate their position and tools when it comes to fraud management. Employing approaches that have been proven to be the most efficient in combating card and online payment fraud can minimize losses and chargeback,” Chege said.

Dealing with cybercrime

Pesapal’s Head of Risk and Compliance Anthony Irungu said card fraud and buyer remorse are the leading instances of fraud for most merchants in Kenya. 

In 2021, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics reported that data breaches like data extortion, data leakage, and data disclosure constituted almost 71 per cent of the cyber-attacks on Kenyan businesses.

Despite the substantial risk that fraud poses to businesses, many companies lack systematic systems and procedures for preventing, detecting, and responding to fraud. 

Some of the fraud detection tools used to reduce online fraud-related losses include payer authentication (3-D secure), device identification, flagging suspicious transactions, mapping out of high-risk countries and sectors, Card Verification Number (CVN), and Address Verification Service (AVS).