APAC businesses expect fraud to increase in next 5yrs

• Experian’s Economics of Fraud report finds fraud a region-wide issue
• However, fraud challenges differ from one country to the next

 
MORE than half (59%) of firms in Asia Pacific expect fraud to increase in the next five years, according to The Economics of Fraud: Mitigating Risk Amidst Fast Growth and Innovation report from Experian.
 
Over half of the surveyed firms (51%) indicating that they are spending more time and investment on fraud prevention, the Dublin-headquartered information services company said in a statement.
 
Top-line findings around fast-growth markets from the report highlight that:
 

• On a scale of 1-5 with 5 as the most concerned, across Asia Pacific, China (3.9) and Indonesia (4.6) are the most preoccupied with fraud compared with mature markets like Australia and New Zealand, which rank 3 and 3.1 respectively.

• Telecommunications and financial services firms are the most concerned about fraud. Retailers are lagging – considering the growth and prevalence of e-commerce for consumers, particularly in China; this suggests an area for improvement.

• According to financial services firms, fast-growth markets like Indonesia are at risk of credit application fraud (86%), while China (70%) and Malaysia (65%) are at risk of fraud that occurs due to online banking.

“Fortunately, many leading companies have fraud prevention measures in place, but these will need to be hyper-dynamic, constantly seeking to balance risk mitigation with minimising customer impact and intrusiveness,” said Experian’s South-East Asia managing director Jeff Price.
 
“With the accelerating adoption of electronic and mobile commerce, fast-growth markets are now facing a greater number and greater variety of risks of attacks from fraudsters.
 
“The direct financial costs to companies across almost all industry segments are significant and the reputational exposure is even more immense,” he added.

READ ALSO: Singapore a ripe target for cyberthreats and banking trojans
 
Top-line fraud prevention findings specific to South-East Asia include:
 

• Singaporean companies are the most likely to pass on fraud prevention costs to customers.

• Malaysian companies are least reliant on external fraud prevention suppliers, a likely cause of their increased internal costs in fraud prevention measures.

• Indonesian companies’ fraud prevention measures have a slight advantage against their South-East Asian counterparts when it comes to the impact to a customer’s on-boarding process.

The prevalence of fraud in Asia Pacific is an unfortunate by-product of growth, Experian said.
 
Businesses which are comfortable addressing isolated fraud activity must now relook at their fraud strategy to encompass a more expansive solution to ensure that they can address the growing, and increasingly surmountable problem across the Asia Pacific fraud landscape.
 
For access to the full Asia Pacific fraud report, go here.
 
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