Tag: covid-19

In this episode of Insights in Action, we talk with Derek Garriock, Design & Innovation Director at Experian and David Bernard, SVP of Global Marketing & Strategy at Experian Decision Analytics, about the future of banking and trends and opportunities arising in the post-Covid-19 crisis era. The future of banking is being shaped, in part, by people's response to Covid-19 There is adaptation to the current crisis, but even as we start to progressively get out of lockdown in a number of countries, banks have realized there are a number of deeper things around their use of analytics, the fine-tuning of their scorecards, lending strategies and risk strategies that have to be redone. Also, there’s the general, longer-term trend towards moving some of their banking structure to the cloud, making sure that their decision strategies are fit for purpose, that they are flexible enough, building attributes into the system. So, there are a number of programs that are continuing and sometimes accelerating. David Bernard, SVP, Global Strategy & Marketing, Experian Decision Analytics Questions answered include: Are we already on the path to a different way of banking? Speed, convenience, and choice have gained a different meaning, accelerating digitalization efforts and demands virtually overnight. What are the current areas of focus for the industry based on experiences with financial institutions globally? Has this Covid-19 crisis further challenged the status quo in the industry and what is the anticipated impact between traditional financial services and fintech challengers? What are the pillars of a successful modern banking infrastructure, and what promising technologies can help meet new market dynamics? Related content: The role of the virtual assistant: What businesses can do to ensure consumer demand is met while taking care of customer experience Maximizing impact from AI investment: 4 pillars of holistic AI Be mindful of these 3 Strategies when engaging customers digitally

As consumer organizations settle into the so-called new normal, behaviors have dramatically changed and expectations have been redefined. Speed, convenience, and choice have gained a different meaning, accelerating digitalization efforts and demands virtually overnight. Recently, we spoke with our internal experts – Derek Garriock, Design & Innovation Director at Experian and David Bernard, SVP of Global Marketing & Strategy at Experian Decision Analytics – about the future of banking and trends and opportunities arising in the post-crisis era. Here’s highlights of that discussion: A different way of understanding and doing banking – a viewpoint by Derek Garriock Industries are redefined by changes in consumer behavior, and certainly, the crisis that’s been unfolding across the globe has had a big impact in terms of how we live our day-to-day lives. These changes are reflected in the demands made of banks, as we try to manage our money in a different way. The challenge that the banks and lenders have seen across the globe is obviously different levels of reaction from consumers and businesses — depending on the jurisdiction that they’re in and the immediate need that’s created. This challenge is more about how you are able to adapt given that going forward this behavioral change will be no doubt be one of the lasting impacts of the crisis. At a very basic level for banks, we still have some of the pre-existing challenges around how they deliver change in a digital world to really serve customers and give them the best possible experience and journeys to serve their needs. Obviously, there’s a lot of regulation banks are required to observe and follow as an organization doing the type of business that they do — but the current needs shine a light on big areas of focus that probably haven’t changed in the last decade — around how do you digitize your business to reduce cost, to better serve your customers, and to be in a place where you drive deeper share of wallet with customers to grow your business. What we’ve seen through the crisis is really a spotlight shone on this area and in the context of how to move quicker, faster, better, and to deliver against some of those core objectives. Current areas of focus for the global banking industry – a viewpoint by David Bernard Thinking about the immediate reaction to the crisis, we have a number of banks that are still focused on coping with lockdowns and business continuity across the globe — managing going into lockdown and out of lockdown across different countries. For example, we had banks in the UK that have call centers in India. When the India lockdown happened, very suddenly they lost their ability to respond to clients over the phone — so we see some immediate impacts of the crisis with banks coping with a situation where different parts of the globe are challenged from a business continuity perspective. Banks also had to adapt to a number of government programs such as government-sponsored loans for small businesses and individuals. They had to adapt details like their scorecards for lending, or their scorecards for debt collections — evaluating their approach to debt collections since suddenly you have a lot of people that lost their jobs. Asking for last month’s bank statements doesn’t quite give you the right view of their personal situation. There is adaptation to the current crisis, but even as we start to progressively get out of lockdown in a number of countries, banks have realized there are a number of deeper things around their use of analytics, the fine-tuning of their scorecards, lending strategies and risk strategies that have to be redone. Also, there’s the general, longer-term trend towards moving some of their banking structure to the cloud, making sure that their decision strategies are fit for purpose, that they are flexible enough, building attributes into the system. So, there are a number of programs that are continuing and sometimes accelerating. There is also the example of digital interfaces where it looks like you can do something in an app on the website, but behind the scenes, a number of banks have analog processors — non-digital processors — where there are people reading data internal in the system or doing some manual task behind the scenes and the whole crisis is shedding light on those examples and forcing more complete digitization across the board. Listen to the full podcast: https://bit.ly/IIA_FutureFS Related articles: Digital transformation through cloud-first decisioning by Chris Fletcher, SVP Decision Management & Cloud Services & David Britton, VP Of Industry Solutions Maximizing impact from AI investment: 4 pillars of holistic AI by Shri Santhanam, Global Head Of Advanced Analytics & AI & Birger Thorburn, Chief Technology Officer, Global Decision Analytics How rapidly changing environments are accelerating the need for AI and Machine Learning in business by Birger Thorburn, Chief Technology Officer, Global Decision Analytics

The global pandemic led to swift and unexpected shifts in consumer behavior, from the significant increase in the use of digital channels, to the decrease in ability to pay for many. Based on this environment, we’ll highlight where senior financial services executives should focus their analytics and decisioning teams’ efforts to provide a bit of certainty in an uncertain time: Confidence and demand for credit First off, it’s important that lenders consider current dynamics when monitoring and measuring the effect of fluctuating market conditions on their portfolio. Overall lower consumer confidence in the ability to access credit is not surprising, but the true impact on demand for credit is yet to be concluded. “As a result of both the pandemic itself and the changed economic conditions it caused, consumers’ appetite for new credit and the ways in which they are using existing credit are in flux.” – Leslie Parrish, “Uncertainty Is Certain: Consumers’ Financial Outlook at Mid-Year 2020,” Aite Group, July 2020 From late June to early July 2020, we surveyed 3,000 consumers and 900 businesses in 10 countries. This research indicates some consumers are responding to economic uncertainty by reducing spend and tapping into financial reserves, while other consumers are using credit to make strategic decisions such as refinancing, buying a new house, or opening new lines of credit for access to money. Regardless of customer sentiment, it's important for businesses to understand these realities: Consumer demand for digital is increasing — our research shows it's gone up 20% since Covid-19 Digital channels will help fuel new business — with a marked 40% increase in consumers opening new loans digitally based on our research These indicators should drive investment in solutions to secure the digital channel and improve digital onboarding, including data, analytics, and technology. Such investments help meet consumers’ digital demands, safeguarding your ability to retain existing customers and win new business. >> Download the Global Insights Report Ability to pay Lenders should also be mindful of the volatility of the current environment and ensure their teams rely on data and analytics that enable accurate decisions based on a consumer’s current financial situation. Given active programs established to supplement a decline in consumer income, we are still enjoying a nourished economic environment. However, our research shows that globally, since Covid-19 began, the number of consumers having difficulty paying their bills has doubled, and according to Aite Group, half of consumers in the U.S. reported their household has suffered a loss of employment income since mid-March.1 These conditions enforce the need to have the right tools in place to best assess consumer creditworthiness. Decisioning in the new norm As lenders continue to focus on business health, it’s key to consider operational efficiency and ongoing optimization. Given there is no precedent to the current global pandemic, lenders will need to rely on innovative solutions to learn and adapt in real-time. Our research shows that many businesses know change is needed and are seeking solutions to tackling this challenge. One in five businesses globally lack confidence in the effectiveness of their credit risk and collection decisions since Covid-19 began. Sixty percent plan to increase budget for analytics and credit risk management. Meanwhile, the top three solutions businesses believe will improve operational efficiency when supporting customers’ financial needs are: automated decision management, cloud-based applications, and artificial intelligence. To keep pace and be successful through this unchartered territory, lenders must leverage innovative technologies such as cloud-enabled solutions, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Though today’s lending environment is likely to include levels of volatility for some time, making the right adjustments now can help lenders support consumers and business performance in the long term. >> Get more insights on the impact of Covid-19 on consumer behaviors and business strategies _____ 1 “Uncertainty Is Certain: Consumers’ Financial Outlook at Mid-Year 2020,” Aite Group, July 2020

Download the report People’s changing behaviors to safeguard their health during the ongoing global Coronavirus pandemic has fueled a massive shift to digital channels. As people’s day-to-day routines and behaviors shift, so too is the attention on businesses to find new ways of staying relevant to their customers. Two-thirds of consumers are staying loyal to the businesses they preferred prior to Covid-19. 20% increase in overall online transactions – a 41% increase in online grocery shopping, 40% increase in applying for loans online, and a 22% increase in food delivery or takeout. 50% of consumers surveyed expect to increase their online transactions even more in the next 12-months. Uncertainty for what the next 6-12 months will hold has people and businesses vacillating between optimism and pessimism.  Some likely contributing factors could be public health gains and setbacks for containing the virus, some businesses opening only to close again, and the prospect of some students returning to school in-person and while others go remote – and what all of that means for economic recovery. At the time of our study (June 30 -July 7, 2020), some lenders and retailers are demonstrating more confidence than others, while consumers - many already feeling depleted - are expecting and bracing for an expected second wave of Covid-19.  Consumer financial hardship 65% of people believe their country has not yet recovered from the economic impact of the pandemic. 30% of consumers reported a decline in household income; India saw the largest household decline at 43%. The number of people having difficulty paying their bills has doubled since Covid-19 began. Businesses operational challenges 53% of businesses believe their operational processes have mostly or completely recovered since Covid-19 began. The U.S. (80%) is the most confident and Germany (27%) is the least. Top challenges faced by most businesses globally are the health and safety of their employees and customers, adjusting operations to support customers, and managing increased demand across channels and functions. 1 in 5 businesses surveyed lacks confidence in the effectiveness of their credit risk and collection decisions since Covid-19 began.  Beyond their intense focus on the safety and security of their employees and customers, our research shows that businesses are making strategic investments – to give consumers greater access to goods and services, and to better manage their customer relationships. They’re also exploring automation and cloud technology to relieve operational constraints. Whether it’s a lender providing financial assistance to small businesses and loan re-payment options to customers or it’s a retailer providing essential supplies and services to people who need it most, helping people and delivering on expectations for secure, relevant customer experience is top of mind. Top areas of investment: strengthening the security of mobile and digital channels, new credit risk analytics, and the creation of artificial intelligence (AI) models and increasing digital customer acquisition and engagement. Top 3 solutions businesses believe will improve operational efficiency when supporting customers’ financial needs are automated decision management, cloud-based applications, and artificial intelligence. 60% of businesses plan to increase the budget for analytics and credit risk management. Businesses in the UK, U.S., Australia, and Spain have already increased the adoption of AI and advanced analytics. To solve for the lack of economic precedent, 51% of businesses say they’re asking customers to contribute more information/data and 49% say they’re exploring new or alternative data sources. Download Experian's Decision Analytics Global Insights Report July/August 2020 and learn more about the impact of Covid-19 on consumer behaviors and business strategies

We've compiled the top global July headlines you need to stay in-the-know on the latest hot topics and insights from our experts. 1. Accelerating forward: How Covid-19 has changed banking foreverChris Fletcher, SVP Decision Management & Cloud Services, covers how Covid-19 forced banks to deliver a convenient, engaging, relevant and secure digital experience, and how this fundamentally changes how banks operate and deliver value to customers. 2. Q&A: Importance of fraud trends as businesses open upDigital Journal recently spoke with EK Koh, SVP of Global Identity & Fraud Solutions, on what businesses need to do to be prepared for issues around cybersecurity and fraud as they open back up the economy. 3. Businesses need to modernize their approach for delivering digital experiencesBirger Thornburn, CTO of Decision Analytics, shares how the rapidly changing environment has greatly accelerated the shift from offline to digital interactions. 4. Experian’s 2 latest moves to combat fraudAuto Fin Journal addresses Experian ramping up efforts to curtail synthetic identity fraud, a significant challenge for lenders and finance companies, and strengthen solutions to help businesses more quickly respond to rising fraud threats due to the Covid-19 global health crisis. 5. AI at Experian with Shri SanthanamShri Santhanam, our Head of Global AI & Analytics at DA, participated in the Artificially Intelligent podcast discussing ways to approach AI in a holistic way, always with a view to realizing the desired business outcomes and strategic impact. In this dynamic environment, stay up-to-date with our latest Research:

Due to Covid-19 , the focus on analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly increased. However, while companies have made significant investments in AI, many are struggling to show a tangible impact in return. One executive commented, “We have data science teams and a data lab where advance techniques like neural networks, GANs, etc. are successfully being used. However, less than 10% of our actual operational decisions and products are powered by AI and machine learning (ML). I would like us to be driving greater measurable impact and Covid-19 is exposing some of our execution gaps.” And, he’s not alone. Despite the investment, the true impact is elusive, and many businesses are not getting the desired effect from their efforts. Achieving the results needed to justify continuous investment will take a holistic approach. So, what can companies do to achieve this impact? The four pillars of holistic AI: performance, scaling, adoption and trust Achieving impact from AI requires taking a more holistic approach across four pillars — beyond just the delight of the data scientist producing a better performing model. 1. AI performance — outperforming the status quo and quantifying the impact This pillar is where most data scientists and companies tend to focus first, for example using modern AI techniques to create an underwriting model that performs better than traditional models. The so-called ‘data science moment of truth,’ where the data scientist declares that he has built a model which outperforms the status quo by 10%. However, it’s important to note model performance alone is not sufficient. We should look beyond the model to understand business performance. What quantifiable business impact does the 10% improvement deliver? How many more credit approvals? How much lower will the charge-off rate be? This reasoning provides the important business context around what the incremental performance means. 2. AI scaling — having the right technical infrastructure to operate models at scale This area is often ignored. The risk with data science teams is they can see their job as being completed with creating a better performing model. However, that’s just the beginning. The next important step is to operationally deploy the model and setup the operational infrastructure around it to make decisions at scale. If it is an underwriting model, is it deployed in the right decisioning systems? Does it have the right business rules around it? Will it be sufficiently responsive for real-time decision making, or will users have to wait? Will there be alerts and monitoring to ensure that the model doesn’t degrade? Are there clearly defined, transparent and explainable business strategies, and technology infrastructure and governance to ensure all stakeholders are aware? Is the regulatory governance around this model in place? Does the complexity in the model allow it to scale? Too often we see data scientists and data labs create great models that can’t scale and are impractical in an operating environment. One banking executive shared how her team had developed 5 machine learning models with better performance, but were in ‘cold storage’ verse in use, because they didn’t have the ability to scale and operationally deploy them effectively. 3. AI adoption — ensuring you have the right decisioning framework to help translate business decisions to business impact With better performing predictive models and the right technology, we now need to present the information in a way that is ‘human-consumable’ and ‘human-friendly.’ At one bank, we found they built a customer churn ML model for their front lines, but no one was using it. Why? They didn’t have the contextual information needed to talk to the customer — and the sales force didn’t have faith in it — so didn’t adopt it. Subsequently, they built a model with a simpler methodology and more information available at their fingertips — where decisions could be made. This was immediately adopted. This pillar is where the importance of decisioning tools is highlighted. The workflow and contextual information to allow a decision to be orchestrated and made is critical in driving AI adoption. 4. AI trust – having governance, guardrails and the appropriate explainability mechanisms in place to ensure models are compliant, fair and unbiased This final pillar is probably the most important for the future of AI — getting humans to trust it. In recent times we have seen numerous examples like the Apple Card, where the underlying principles and models have been called into question. For scalable AI impact, we need an entire ecosystem of people who can trust AI. To achieve this effect, you need to consistently apply the right principles over time. You also need the right decisions to be explained — like adverse action calls. Explainability capabilities help manage communication and understanding of advanced analytics, contributing to established AI trust. And, when fairness and bias issues come up, you need to provide good answers as to why decisions were made. AI is poised to fundamentally change the way we do business, and studies show that $3 to 5 trillion in global value annually, up to $15 trillion by 2030, is likely to be created. We believe the four pillars highlighted above will be key to accelerating the journey to driving positive results and capturing this value. At Experian, we are making investments to drive impact for our clients by delivering against these four pillars. Related articles: What is the right approach to AI and analytics for your business? Four fundamental considerationsHow rapidly changing environments are accelerating the Need for AI What’s new in online payment fraud Part 2: How AI and evolving regulation are driving change

Chris Ryan, Senior Fraud Business Consultant, talks to Nick Zulovich at the Auto Remarketing podcast about the new ways we are seeing fraud surface as the global pandemic evolves. "The pattern of activity that we're seeing that has really attracted my interest is this notion of human farming. A human farm is a pool of paid labor who research information on potential fraud victims using data that's been stolen through data breaches and using information that people publish through social media and other outlets. The objective of a human farmer is to be able to assemble a detailed profile of a potential fraud victim so that the perpetrator can better impersonate them and navigate around potential security measures and other obstacles that would normally be in the way." Chris Ryan, Senior Fraud Business Consultant Why the opportunity for human farming? People are out of work so there's a recruitment opportunity for those in need of an income. There is a flood of people into the online space who might not ordinarily engage digitally. This demographic may not be tech-savvy and maybe more susceptible to fraud methods such as phishing. Resources that typically screen for fraud are suffering due to office closures. The combination of high tech fraud to find potential victims plus skilled human intelligence makes these methods highly effective. New trend amidst new circumstances - the rise of synthetic ID Remote transactions combined with the high-value nature of the auto industry makes it a very attractive prospect to fraudsters. Even though purchases are down, the fraudsters are still active. Synthetic identity fraud, in particular, continues to be attractive because the identities are not real and therefore not suffering from the same downturn as genuine profiles. Listen to the full podcast here. Related articles: Getting to grips with the shifting fraud landscape Infographic: Top Global Fraud Trends 2020 Covid-19 as a Gateway to Fraud: Top 5 Global Fraud Trends to Watch Out for in 2020

Insights from Harry Singh, SVP, Global Decisioning, and Hristo Zahariev, Global Product Manager. Due to the global pandemic, one of the key challenges facing many consumers today is the ability to obtain support either from their credit provider or from government. This is manifesting itself in two ways – consumers facing very short-term financial difficulty, which might mean a payment holiday for a few months, or longer-term structural issues such as unemployment, which requires a very different set of treatments and outcomes. But what can businesses do to ensure consumer demand is met while taking care of customer experience? We look at the importance of digital channels within the decisioning environment, and how investment using AI can not only lead to consumer satisfaction now but also a sound business strategy for the future, regardless of how unpredictable that future may be.    How the industry can respond to consumers during this time of need A recent study from March this year looked at businesses that are not yet fully digital in terms of how they handle their consumer interactions, and how they can reach out to consumers to help them during the Covid-19 crisis. With call centers and operational centers closed, and anything between five and 50,000 applications a week coming into banks across the world since the pandemic began, businesses have inevitably been struggling with demand. Based on existing operational models examined within the study, if businesses were to manually manage these applications, they would need to double in size in terms of full-time employees, and follow-up interactions post approval may still not be met. Managing demand and staying compliant, while enabling consumers to successfully interreact without waiting hours to get through is the challenge faced by many businesses. It’s a balancing act that is both an opportunity and a risk and should be treated as such. Helping consumers in a way that is digital, while allowing for self-serve, is fundamental in meeting these new levels of demand - and doing so in a way that doesn’t feel demeaning to the consumer is where true differentiation begins. During a stressful time for consumers, it’s important that businesses step up to the challenge of demystifying their interactions, removing embarrassment around finances while also retaining an element of human engagement. Thanks to AI and a layered, cloud-first approach to decisioning, contacting pre-qualified consumers for both forbearance and hardship can now be done through a business’s banking application or their website, using artificially intelligent virtual assistants that can be deployed in a multitude of different digital channels. The consumer perspective: we need more than a chatbot Chatbots are very effective and useful in many ways, but when an interaction gets complex or there's something of a regulated or more subjective nature, it becomes difficult for that chatbot to provide the kind of service consumers are looking for. The answer lies in continuous learning, which moves away from the decision tree structure of a traditional chatbot and into the realms of natural language processing. The new age of virtual assistant remembers interactions and then learns from them, has short-term and long-term conversation goals, and recognizes small talk. The result feels a lot more empathetic and allows for always-on and real-time consumer interaction. How businesses can develop their strategies not only for today, but going forward Bringing together digital capabilities, analytical insights, and data to understand the affordability of a consumer is critical. Using demographic and geographic data, businesses need those insights, regardless of whether we are in a growth environment, a benign environment, or as we're seeing right now, a recession of macro-economic downturn. Businesses choosing to invest now to address their operational and strategic challenges are not just responding to Covid-19, they are looking beyond and into strategic requirements of the future. Financial difficulty may be more acute right now, but it has always existed and always will, for various reasons.  

In this episode of Insights in Action, David Britton, Vice President of Global Identity & Fraud Solutions, discusses how the Covid-19 pandemic has prompted a massive shift to online for both consumers and businesses, and examines what implications have emerged across the online fraud landscape because of this. "As with any moment like Covid-19, fraudsters are very quick to pick up on possible areas of vulnerability that they can exploit in the market and in the ecosystem. And fraudsters always like to go where the weakest point is in the ecosystem or the weakest link in the chain. So fraudsters are absolutely taking advantage of this."David Britton Phishing is on the rise - fraudsters are impersonating key institutions and their communication channels to manipulate consumers Account takeover fraud - fraudsters are hiding in the traffic peak, posing as consumers using their credentials How businesses can counter the trend: Keeping online fraud at baySecuring our digital identitiesEnsuring a secure, transparent and meaningful treatment of data "The first thing to do is to ensure businesses are pulling together soft signals to define a better risk strategy and authentication strategy because then you can immediately identify if there's an anomolous actor that's trying to impersonate that 'known' good customer."David Britton Listen to this episode of the Insights in Action podcast

The interesting thing about fraud is that it’s always changing. Fraudsters are getting smarter, and fraud threats are constantly evolving. Businesses need to be agile and prepared to quickly shift their fraud strategies to stay a step ahead of emerging fraud threats. Traditionally, it's been very difficult for businesses to keep up – every time they see a shift, new fraud signals must be employed, which means looking at new intelligence signals in order to counter that fraud and then moving through a process of procurement and qualification, and then implementation and integration, of fraud services in order to manage the change. With time of the essence, businesses can no longer wait months to react. They need to be able to react in real-time. Biggest threats for 2020 Covid-19 has accelerated online payment transactions, making way for massive cyber security and data fraud concerns among banks and retailers. The idea of doing more digital business, picking up customers digitally, providing a great digital experience is going to be more and more important as we move through the pandemic. Even businesses which traditionally see most of their customer traffic through bricks and mortar might start to see that shift. All of this means that there is more opportunity for fraudsters to be part of the process and to take advantage of that digital interaction. The risk of fraud is going to increase as more people go digital – In part because of sheer numbers, and in part because more of the people who are going online now maybe doing so for the first time. So companies and consumers alike are less prepared for that kind of interaction. Account opening is likely to drop because of Covid-19, but we should expect to see a sharp increase in account take over fraud. There are a lot of people who are being forced to go online now to transact. They may need to turn to ecommerce. They may need to look at online banking to move their banking online. But the point is, they may never have gone online to perform these tasks before. Many vendors have been rapidly rolling out new technology solutions to help banks and retailers manage this new online demand, which has potentially exacerbated digital fragmentation, privacy concerns, and governance expectations. The importance of continuous risking and self-service The speed at which fraudsters adapt to new technology and behavior has always been a problem, but now that we are seeing sudden and unpredictable change, reacting at speed with new fraud strategies has never been more important for businesses. Typically, businesses need to move through validation, contract and then integration in order to do this – making for a long and tedious (not to mention expensive) process. The new release of CrossCore will pre-qualify fraud and intelligence services so that they are pre-integrated meaning that businesses can choose how they want their transactions to be processed, which fraud and identity services they want to use, and they can do so through simple self-service. There is also a feedback loop where reports are generated on how much fraud was detected. Businesses can access their feedback loop almost in real-time and see if their fraud strategies are working or not, and then adjust things as they go. Customer experience when all of your customers are online The ability to passively and strongly identify a customer is a difficult balance to strike when the goal is not to inconvenience the user. And now that most consumers are running their lives online, they demand not only a secure experience, but a convenient one too. To achieve this, a lot of signals about that person are collected. These range from device characteristics and who it is registered with, to behavior on the device and whether these signals match up to the same person. In order to process this data, the signal streams that come in must be considered and then almost in real-time, fraud analytics allow a decision to be made on whether the interaction is with a genuine person or a fraudster. To be able to reduce friction while passively and strongly identifying a person, advanced analytics becomes integral. More about how our latest upgrades can help your business

In a report made available this month, Juniper Research anticipates that in 2024, remote purchases for digital and physical goods will exceed 285 billion transactions per annum; an 80% increase on the figure for 2019.  And, that values will increase by nearly 60% to over $9 trillion. It’s impossible to look at these numbers without considering the impact of the massive migration to digital channels that businesses and their customers made to stay engaged during the early response to Covid-19. Finding ways to support customers and their needs remotely has been met with a lot of creative solutions and we see new trends taking hold. For example, “buy online and pick up in-store” and “buy now and pay later” provides customers the access they need for goods and services now with a lot of conveniences. Convenience is a significant part of the customer experience but unfortunately can expose a business to a lot of fraud. According to David Britton, “Fraudsters will always be at the forefront of technology exploitation.” There is evidence of this not only in technological innovation but in the manipulation of human behavior, otherwise known as social engineering. According to Juniper, new technologies such as artificial intelligence will take social engineering to unseen levels of success, like the rise we're seeing in fictitious or synthetic identities. But while it might seem like an impossible problem to manage, businesses have solutions available to them to prevent fraud, including using AI against cybercriminals. In fact, Experian believes that there the layered approach to fraud detection and prevention can significantly protect businesses, and their customers, throughout the credit lifecycle, and withstand the changing face of fraud. Check out the report on key trends and capabilities required for securing digital payments and find out more about Experian's solution on the Juniper Research Leaderboard. Related content: Protect your family from potential fraud when kids are playing video games Getting to grips with the shifting fraud landscape

The decisioning landscape is changing rapidly. In parallel to this, digital continues to redefine the customer experience with a big focus on removing friction from the customer journey. Mounting expectations around online customer experience mean that we are seeing a digital transformation both in terms of consumer interaction, and what the businesses are processing in the background. The front and back end are no longer mutually exclusive, and the driving force behind this transformation is digital, and it’s enabled by the cloud. How the pandemic has shifted priorities Before the Covid-19 pandemic took hold, businesses were well on their way to recognizing this. Digitizing more workflows while incorporating a truly customer-centric view was the goal of 2020. A Gartner report shows that in January, priorities for CIOs centered around Cloud and DevOps. This push to shorten the development lifecycle by combining software development and IT operations into a single discipline, alongside demand for Robotic Process Automation, using bots to focus on automating high volume repetitive tasks, were top of the list for businesses. By April, these priorities had changed. Businesses quickly shifted their focus to the pandemic, and with that, the need to enable remote or home working. But Cloud remains firmly within the top three. We look at why cloud-first decisioning remains critical to digital transformation, now more than ever. Why Cloud-first is even more important now Managing cash flow: When a CIO is in the cost optimization mode and trying to conserve cash, scaling back on the use of existing Cloud technology can afford immediate cost savings. Cloud cost for infrastructure of the service, or platform of the service, and even some software of the service is often tied to the business. The less usage, the more savings. When a CIO needs to implement new technologies in 2020, Cloud can offer the most cash flow optimized needs to do so. Less cash is spent upfront to acquire Cloud technology than to buy data center systems or licensed software. Business agility: Cloud technology makes it much easier to keep systems up to date and secure, alongside feature enhancements and new releases. The Cloud minimizes lengthy and costly delivery projects with solutions that can be deployed in weeks, not months and years. Customer journey: Many established market leaders are running digital transformation programs that re-orientate their business away from functional and product silos to focus on customer journeys enabled by Cloud services. Keeping it simple: Simplification is crucial. Simplifying the IT environment with Cloud services that eliminate the need to manage hardware and other infrastructure. Using Cloud-native architecture to support auto-scaling, zero downtime for upgrade. Security is paramount: The challenge to identify and fight fraud by analyzing behavior during the data capture process is ever-present. Software needs to evolve all the time to adapt to threats, and it needs to continuously update with new features to help businesses remain competitive. Businesses need to protect consumer digital accounts from Account Takeover threats while balancing consumer convenience. Cloud-first impacts all layers, from consumer interactions to data sourcing and processing, from fraud detection to identity verification, and at the heart of areas like credit and decisioning. Integrated decisioning, and decisioning that is governed and can be clearly explained to both the auditor and to the regulator is the goal of every business, and it is enabled by the cloud.