Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the MRC 2014 EuropeanSpring Congress, which was held at Disneyland Paris. MRC is the principalnot-for-profit global forum for e-commerce fraud, payments, and riskprofessionals. It provides proprietary education and training and superioradvocacy, as well as a forum for timely and relevant discussions. From thestart of the event, this mission was clear, as the event was designed to be ahighly interactive and educational forum for the largely Europe-based merchantaudience.
Topics on May 15 ranged from the implementation of giftcards to understanding big data and country-specific payment market updates. Merchantshad the opportunity to discuss payment issues confronting their business with colleaguesand industry experts. Keynote addresses presented a comprehensive and positiveoutlook on the macroeconomic conditions in Europe and released MRC’s GlobalFraud Survey, with detailed aggregated data collected from MRC members. Thedata presented clearly demonstrates that MRC members suffer less from paymentfraud than do nonmembers but nonetheless are still impacted by the growingglobal problem of card not present (CNP) fraud.
On May 16, the focus shifted to new solutions that can helpmerchants minimize their fraud exposure and ensure a seamless checkoutexperience online for customers. In this vein, MRC invited a variety of fraudsolution providers like Jumio to present their products and solutions. Otherindustry participants were represented as well. For example WorldPay, a globalleader in processing, presented its foreign exchange solution, which allowsmerchants to reduce the costs of making payments internationally by reducingthe number of FX conversions.
With additional breakout sessions on data privacy and Europe-specificpayment regulations at the end of the event, overall the MRC 2014 European SpringCongress served to provide attendees a comprehensive and well-rounded learningand networking experience in regard to the most significant and intriguingpayment topics confronting European merchants today. As the European e-commercespace continues to grow, merchants attending this annual event will be able totake home with them a series of best practices and ideas they can employ togain competitive advantage in combatting fraud and improving the customerexperience.
All in all, the event was extremely interesting and a mustattend for merchants and other payment industry participants seeking a betterunderstanding of what retailers are truly interested in and what issues theyare confronting in the ever-evolving payments industry landscape. For moreinformation on the MRC and the events it holds, see https://www.merchantriskcouncil.org/Pages/home.aspx
