Crossborder-ecommerce.com published an article on fighting cross-merchant fraud.

"While ecommerce has opened up international expansion opportunities for merchants, it has also broadened the options for fraudsters. Fraudsters generally don’t respect geographic boundaries, often focusing their efforts on particular product types or market sectors. They may well target several merchants within a sector, moving quickly from one ecommerce site to another and using the same personally identifiable information to make purchases from a series of merchants within a very short time. This creates a big challenge for ecommerce merchants of all kinds, irrespective of location and trading regions."

 Source Crossborder-ecommerce.com

"The only truly effective defence against this kind of cross-merchant fraud is the ability to access and analyse relevant fraud intelligence from beyond your own organisation – and to adapt fraud rules quickly, in response to what you see."

"The greatest value can come from sharing data, between merchants in the same sector, but also across geographies and industries. Exchanging and analysing relational information (information that is associated with fraudulent behaviour) such as card number, email address, shipping address, customer ID, phone number and device ID can significantly increase the chances of accurately detecting fraud, and enabling merchants to take relevant action. Tracking relational data is especially important in countering cross-merchant fraud organised on an industrial scale."

"Merchants can also optimise fraud detection by combining their fraud rules with a neural score. Neural network technology can accurately detect changing patterns of anomalistic purchase behaviour across merchants – behaviour that is not generally detected by non-linear algorithms or static rules. Selecting a fraud solution which incorporates a neural network can give merchants a critical advantage in the fight against fraud, especially when fraudsters use the same cardholder information at multiple online merchants, both within short and prolonged periods."

Member of European Parliament (MEP) Marietje Schaake calls for the creation of a European Parliament Committee that is exclusively devoted to Digital Affairs and Technology.

"MEP Schaake elaborated that although new technologies have changed societies the European Parliament still has not broached the subject yet."

"European Parliamentary committees are divided in 20 committees, each focusing on a specially designated topic. For the ecommerce sector, this has proven problematic in the past: the ecommerce sector is affected by various topics such as payments, privacy and transport. Yet all this parallel policy areas have often moved in different directions which proved to be detrimental for the industry in some cases."

"Schaake thinks that by issuing one digital themes-related committee, from net neutrality to copyright and from cyber security to internet governance, one could better allocate the knowledge and resources."

"She also thinks that power division among committees is a reflection of the past and that Europe should turn competitive and innovative, starting with European Parliament’s priorities which, before all, should keep pace with developments in technology."

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According to this, Pakistan is a promising ecommerce market since it has 31 million internet users, out of which 50% use mobiles for browsing.

"Pakistan has liberalized international trade and, as such, US-based online commerce companies like Amazon, Macy’s and JC Penny are allowed to ship items to the country. The delivery of online orders is made via Borderfree. Online shoppers can purchase items by using their local currency via online banking or cash-on-delivery."

"Online payment options such as credit and debit cards are yet to be developed in this country as there is solely United Bank Limited (UBL) which facilitates online payments as such. Online stores dedicated to selling products to international buyers generally choose third-party gateways like 2CheckOut, Payza and Skrill for overseas sales. For domestic sales, choices include online bank transfer, branchless banking like mobile network accepting payments on behalf of banks, mostly from consumers without bank accounts, and mobile transfer."

"There is a large percentage of the country’s gross domestic product that is being spent on consumption which makes consumer retail as an even more growing sector in the country. Pakistan imports USD 40 billion worth of goods while exporting only USD 24.6 billion making up the differences from remittances from Pakistanis living abroad of USD 13.2 billion, everything happening on a yearly basis. The mean percentage of Pakistani consumers likely purchase goods and services, construct housing etc. Wholesale and retail sectors account for 17.1% of Pakistan’s economy."

According to this, the Russian parliament has adopted a set of amendments to the national legislation on payments, including an “anti-terrorism” package, which make user identification mandatory for electronic payments in certain situations where anonymous payments were previously allowed.

"According to the amendments, there are currently three levels of transactional anonymity:
• The anonymous use of electronic payments remains possible for individual transactions under RUB 15,000 (almost USD 440), with a monthly limit of RUB 40,000 (USD 1,170). The change here is that anonymity is no longer permitted for money transfers of any size between individuals, and as payments to foreign e-merchants operating without a Russian representative.
• In these last two cases, users are required to identify themselves under a “simplified” procedure. Users must provide their mobile phone number, their passport number, and a secondary identification number – either their tax payer number (ИНН), individual insurance number (СНИЛС) or medical insurance number (OMC). Under this procedure, individual transactions can be made for amounts of up to RUB 60,000 (USD 1,750), with a monthly limit of RUB 200,000 (USD 5,830).
• Fully identified users – those who present their original or notary certified passport – can make e-payment transactions of up to RUB 100,000 (USD 2,915)."

"These new rules are significantly less restrictive than those initially considered. In their first reading earlier this year, the amendments established a threshold for user identification in all types of transactions at RUB 1,000 (around USD 30). However, intense lobbying from payment industry players and associations resulted in a more liberal – are arguably more reasonable – approach to fighting terrorism."

"The company has also begun integration with government databases to verify users’ identification numbers. This procedure, which is supposed to be completed automatically and instantaneously, will become mandatory on November 2014. Xsolla also fears “a large drop in revenue” for foreign e-merchants due to the new user identification requirements on small transactions."

"It is hard to predict at this stage to what extent the new identification requirements will affect these businesses. However, payments with bank cards – which represent a significant part of cross-border transactions – are not affected by the new rules, since they already imply user identification."

Source Retail Touch Points