Fraud Risk in Mobile Payments - Survey Results

Neural Technologies recently carried out a survey of global mobile operators to find out their views on mobile payments and the fraud threats associated with them.

Responses were received from fraud and risk managers from mobile operators from various countries within Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean.

Neural Technologies would like to take this opportunity to thank all the operators who kindly gave their time to participate in this survey.

Here are the results:

Does your company currently offer mobile money, or do you plan to in the future?



69% of respondents said they were already offering mobile payments
23% said they were working towards offering mobile payments
8% said they were not yet offering mobile payments

 
 
Do you see mobile money as a service differentiator from your competitors?
85% of respondents said yes
15% said no



How would you expect your customers to use such a service ­ transferring money abroad, paying for goods etc?

There was a tremendous variety in the services being offered and planned.  As one might expect, the answers varied depending on the region of the world, maturity of the financial systems and other socio-economic and geographic factors.
  
The answers broadly fell into three categories:

1) Paying for goods and services, including micro payments, e.g. parking, vending machines, transport
2) Money transfers, including national and international
3) Banking facilities, including companies paying wages, companies paying suppliers, customers paying bills, loans, savings accounts

Have you considered the potential mobile money fraud threats and what do you think they might be?

Answers included:
- Account information hacking
- Identity theft
- Stolen PIN codes
- Identity spoofing
- Money theft
- Money laundering
- Subscription fraud
- Bad debt
- Dealer fraud (fake registrations for earning more commission)

Some respondents said that they had managed to control the fraud threats of subscription fraud and money laundering by creating solid registration policies and procedures and limiting the number and amount of transactions.

Other suggested that fraud threats could be reduced by providing advice to users on PIN management and replacement of SIM cards.

Would you look to partner with an existing payments infrastructure, e.g. bank, VISA, Mastercard, or to undertake mobile payments yourself?

Respondents were unanimous in agreeing that partnership was vital to the success of mobile payments and for customer security. 

70% of respondents said yes they would look to partner
30% of respondents said they had already entered into partnership



Other points of interest that came out of the survey were:

• In some regions the legislative requirements to become a fully accredited financial credit provider are seen as a challenge to implementing mobile money.

• Mobile money is expected to be used for all monetary activities in countries where carrying cash poses a risk to personal security.

• In some regions it is viewed that the true value of mobile payments has yet to be appreciated by the general public and that more education is required.
   

Download our Mobile Payments Fraud fact sheet.

Check out our Mobile Payments Overview - Fraud Management report.

 

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