Digital Strategies to Empower Small Businesses Against Fraud

Small businesses have become increasingly more vulnerable to fraudulent activity over the past five years, with fraud rates continually rising, and spiking during the pandemic as a result of the flood of new businesses to digital tools and increased desperation among fraudsters. Banks have important behind-the-scenes work to continue, but the most overlooked weapon against fraud in small-business banking is the customer-facing digital experience.

In this report, a companion piece to Three Priorities for Countering Fraud Against Small Businesses, Javelin outlines why small businesses are uniquely susceptible to fraudulent activity, and provides a detailed framework for how banks can deputize their business-owner customers against fraud through a Security Hub approach in online and mobile banking.

The behavioral and attitudinal data in this report was collected from a random-sample survey conducted in June 2021 of 900 business owners and decision-makers with annual company revenue between $100,000 and $10 million.

Past data was derived from the following sources:

• A random-sample survey of 900 business owners and decision-makers conducted in three separate cohorts in March, April, and May 2020
• A random-sample survey of 1,000 business owners and decision-makers conducted in June 2019
• A random-sample survey of 1,000 business owners and decision-makers conducted in May 2018
• A random-sample survey of 1,000 business owners and decision-makers conducted in May 2017
• A random-sample survey of 1,000 business owners and decision-makers conducted in April 2016