Growing confidence gap between businesses fraud prevention performance and reality

The EMEA Fraud Report 2019 is based on the fourth annual Experian-commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting. It looks at businesses’ approach to fraud management, including emerging trends, fraud’s impact, keys investments and how it’s informing critical skill sets and the confidence companies have in tackling it.

Despite 40% saying fraud is evaluated and understood within their business, only 32% claim it’s clearly defined, measured or underpinned by automation, and just 14% believe their ability to prevent fraud is genuinely well-optimised.

While the findings show that fraud prevention is a top priority for the clear majority (85%) of the 913 EMEA decision-makers surveyed, there are higher levels of self-confidence in Italy, Poland, Austria and Germany specifically, which doesn’t always align with investments being made to effectively manage it.

The study also revealed that data theft (58%), identity theft (47%) and account takeover fraud (45%) are now the most prevalent types of attack across EMEA. Unlike historical views of fraud’s direct financial effect on a business, respondents regard the loss of customers as having a bigger impact on their companies (34%) today. It highlights why many business leaders now recognise the extent to which fraud prevention must take priority and that risk management needs to be better optimised.

Given the scale and impact of fraud across countries, many companies also now recognise the critical need to invest in innovation and technology to manage it more effectively. More than half (51%) of respondents across EMEA plan to invest in artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions within the next three years, alongside single access modular platforms (55%) and capabilities to prevent fraudulent activities.