As mobile payment options become more prevalent among small businesses, so too do the opportunities for fraud, new research shows.
A study by LexisNexis and Javelin Strategy & Research discovered that smaller mobile merchants — small businesses that accept at least one type of payment through either mobile browsers, mobile applications or mobile point-of-sale systems — rely on fewer fraud-prevention solutions, meaning they are often more exposed to deceptive schemes.
Specifically, smaller mobile merchants use on average just two different types of fraud-technology solutions, compared with an average of four types for larger businesses. Fraud-technology prevention includes such tools as PIN and signature authentication, check verification services, transaction and customer profile databases, browser/malware tracking, IP geolocation and real-time transaction tracking tools.