Payment fraud on the rise for 85 % of Belgian online retailers

(Advertorial) As retail – and especially payments – is increasingly becoming digital, cyber threats are increasing at the same rate. An overwhelming 85 % of Belgian retailers say attempted e-commerce fraud and illegal transactions are increasing. How can they protect themselves?

Growing sense of insecurity

Payments are increasingly made digitally, but unfortunately, this brings with it a new type of fraud and insecurity. Internationally, 83 % of large retailers (more than ten million euros in turnover) report an increase in the online threat, a survey among 1,503 retailers in five European countries (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden) commissioned by PayPal shows.

The Netherlands and Belgium are among the worst off: 88 % of Dutch retailers see the number of online fraud attempts and cyber threats increase, while Belgium is faring not much better at 85 %. Only Ireland is even worse off with no fewer than nine out of ten retailers reporting increased fraud attempts.

Cyber security is therefore a crucial challenge for businesses, with fraud and online security at the top of the list of current concerns for retailers. They even see it as a bigger threat than their cash flow and supply chain disruptions. More than a fifth of respondents even say cyber and data security is their biggest challenge at the moment, while 20 % are concerned about fraud and risk management.

How to help combat fraud

Businesses are increasingly realising the importance of ensuring the security and integrity of payment transactions. As many as 78 % of respondents emphasise the importance of strong measures against fraud and risks. But what can they do? How can retailers make their digital transactions more secure? Here are some recommendations:

Ensure uniform protection mechanisms that apply to all payment platforms used. After all, threats are not limited to one payment provider.
Legislation evolves with the market. Be sure to look ahead and anticipate new laws or changes that are coming. Good preparation is rarely in vain.
Implement advanced protection mechanisms against chargebacks. A chargeback is the amount that is refunded to the customer if they dispute a transaction, but retailers usually have to pay an additional fee. Hence the business needs to invest in solutions that can help minimise the risk of chargebacks.
Automate dispute management to limit financial liability for disputed transactions. Disputes about purchases can cost a lot of money, time and energy. Transparent and automatic handling of potential disputes can help business reduce the costs associated with dispute management.

Proactive prevention

In short, a holistic approach to payment processing is becoming increasingly important to enable retailers to securely process payment transactions, minimize expensive chargebacks, create operational efficiency and always comply with evolving legal requirements.

PayPal’s solutions help companies have the intelligence they may need to differentiate legitimate customers from fraudsters and analyse transactions to proactively help reduce fraud before it happens. With advanced and in-build features and the rich data gleaned from over 20 years of experience, PayPal helps enable businesses to shift to a digital model that reduces friction and manual reviews, improves operational efficiency, and creates a secure platform to help stop fraudsters and delight customers.

To learn more about how to choose the right payments strategy to grow business, read PayPal’s latest Payments Infrastructure report, based on research with businesses in Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden and Denmark.

All data in this article is taken from Payments Infrastructure Report by PayPal, 2024 as well as a study based on the results of a survey among 1,503 merchants with revenue above 10 million euros, in Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden (minimum of 300 merchants per country). The survey was conducted between 12 December 2023 and 27 December 2023 by Censuswide.