March 17, 2014 - The world's largest mobile payments and fraud survey has indicated that merchants are becoming more aware of the dangers fraudulent attacks pose to their business and, as a result, have realised that specialised tools and technology are required to protect their mCommerce operations.

In the 2nd Annual Mobile Payments and Fraud Survey it was revealed that the mobile channel has increased in importance for merchants, contributing a greater share of overall revenue. However, with the increasing importance, the fear of fraudulent activity has also increased.

The survey of more than 1,000 merchants around the world was conducted by Kount Inc, The Fraud Practice LLC and CardNotPresent.com and went on to indicate 66 per cent of merchants now actively support mCommerce, a 30 per cent year-on-year rise.

David Montague, president and executive consultant at The Fraud Practice LLC, said: "Not only are organisations now more likely to find that the fraud risk associated with the mobile channel is higher than with standard web eCommerce, but organisations are also more likely to believe the mobile channel requires additional tools for managing risk."

Almost a third of merchants see mobile as riskier than standard e-commerce, an increase from 24 per cent in the inaugural 2012 survey.

Don Bush, vice president of Marketing at Kount, explained that the protection of a business operating in the mobile commerce arena requires a fraud solution that integrates with all mobile platforms without any impact to the customer experience.

More than half of respondents considered the ability to detect a mobile device as "very important" and 89 per cent said it was "important" or "somewhat important".

However, in reality, very few merchants are taking measures to prevent mCommerce fraud, as only 34.2 per cent of those surveyed have the ability to detect a mobile device. It was also revealed that the number of merchants able to detect the specific type of mobile device decreased from last year.