Jumio, which implements user identification to protect against fraudulent account openings, reports that it has detected a 28% jump in account opening fraud attempts worldwide, which is a 100% increase from 2014 rates. The escalation is very likely another indication of increased synthetic identity fraud activity:
“The data detailing the levels of fraud are found in Jumio’s new holiday fraud report (“2019 Holiday New Account Fraud Report”). While the report shows new account fraud increasing throughout 2019, surprisingly, attempted new account ID fraud was 19 percent less during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend (compared to the average 2019 fraud levels). This is a time when fraud attempts normally escalate.
While attempts at retail fraud were lower across the biggest shopping weekend, for 2019 as a whole new account fraud increased to 1.8 percent. This represents a 106.8 percent increase over 2014 levels. During the 2019 holiday period, new account fraud dipped to 1.5 percent. However, this was still more than 80 percent higher than 2014’s equivalent holiday period levels.
With geographical regions, the Asia-Pacific region experienced the highest rates of full-year fraud at 3.27 percent while the U.S. had the lowest rates of fraud at 0.88 prevent. This is a trend which has been consistent over the last six years. While the U.S. experienced lower holiday fraud rates in 2019, new account fraud was still 138 percent higher in 2019 compared to 2014 levels.”
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
