Our last update described the new capabilities automatically available to customers using CommercePointe®, our hosted suite of fraud detection and order review technologies. This update will provide some insight into the cost savings and unique fraud protection capabilities afforded by this service.

Costs

Fraud management entails limiting loss of goods to fraud, minimizing chargebacks, and avoiding unnecessary revenue loss due to false positives from overly cautious fraud strategies – all with whatever budget and resources are available. When a hosted fraud management solution is used, costs associated with hardware, network resources, applications, license fees, and IT staff can be drastically reduced. With the release of new CommercePointe® functionality earlier this year, updates have become automatically available to merchants using the service without the long lag times required in merchant IT environments. For our newer customers, they are up and running faster than with traditional software installation with no costs to acquire and integrate new hardware platforms to host the CommercePointe® application, and their implementation effort is limited to connecting to the service.

When CommercePointe® analysts manage your fraud strategy, we keep your system tuned to optimally protect your business. Our experts work in close collaboration with you to create and maintain fraud strategies aligned with your unique risks. In addition, the system supports a “pay as you grow” model. Merchants can purchase only the level of service required, and focus capital on other investment needs. If your requirements change, we can adjust your service to address the changes without expensive and lengthy IT projects.

Capability

CommercePointe® requires no technical infrastructure to support the hardware, network integration, and application code leveraged to provide its world-class fraud protection. In addition, requirements for load balancing, redundancy, archival, disaster recovery, and business continuity are much easier to meet by utilizing our infrastructure. Plus, since we are managing the infrastructure, your business is largely insulated from technology changes like operating system and database migrations, reducing the need for your internal resources to stay up to date with the specific technologies associated with running a fraud management platform.

For peak-load times, the service is scalable. You can leverage our high-volume infrastructure during peak times and then scale back at times with lower-volume. When it comes time to add capabilities, services can be provided as quickly as your business grows. For instance, in times that require additional order review functionality, our risk management team of analysts can be called upon to support existing review capabilities.

A best practice in transaction decisioning is to use as much available data across all customers, products, and channels. Data from all CommercePointe® merchants is used to determine patterns of activity that might be fraudulent in nature . Your fraud strategy is not limited to visibility of your data alone, but our proprietary structure allows for secure use of data across many merchants with absolutely no need for data sharing. To do this, CommercePointe® Fraud Analysts work real-time with all available data to "tune" our models for optimal efficiency, and your business benefits from this approach. This kind of approach is not possible with an isolated system hosted in your own environment.

Another best practice requires comprehensive plans to address known fraud issues and respond effectively to new fraud issues that arise. One component of this involves protecting your business from the types of fraud seen by other businesses. This requires broad industry knowledge and the ability to leverage information about what is occurring with other retailers. Even with a sizable and sophisticated fraud staff, this can be difficult. ClearCommerce® analysts, familiar with the types of fraud that are seen, as well as how to prevent it, and can easily leverage this knowledge to benefit your business. As mentioned above, when new fraud-detection technologies and new capabilities are added to the environment, CommercePointe® merchants benefit from these changes immediately, without requiring an upgrade project.

Compliance

In today’s landscape of ever-increasing concern over consumer data security by government and various payment industry bodies, it is costly to keep current on all aspects of compliance. Use of a hosted, guaranteed-compliant system is almost a necessity, because with it you limit your cost to stay compliant with PCI (Payment Card Industry Security Standards), PA DSS (Payment Application Data Security Standard), and Sarbanes/Oxley.

We are excited about the new capabilities added to our system, and how much more they will enhance fraud protection for CommercePointe® merchants. If you’d like to learn more about CommercePointe®, contact your account manager or e-mail clearcommerce@fisglobal.com.

By,
Steve Daniel
Sr. Product Manager