Prevention is Hardest Fraud Stage to Solve but Security-Minded Issuers are Implementing New Features
San Francisco, CA, January 20, 2016: Today JAVELIN (@JavelinStrategy) announced the 2016 Consumer Identity Safety Leaders for credit card issuers: American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, PNC, SunTrust, USAA, and Wells Fargo. JAVELIN’s 2016 credit card issuers’ study scored 20 of the nation’s top credit card issuers – providing insight into how the customer‐facing security measures of credit card issuers are mitigating current fraud trends and areas for improvement.
JAVELIN uses its Prevention, Detection, and Resolution Model® assessing the account security features of the nation’s top credit card issuers.
The Prevention stage is the hardest stage to excel in staying ahead of fraudsters yet it is critical for adopting new features to mitigate risk. Only the top 5 issuers awarded by JAVELIN scored over 50% in prevention category, mainly by offering expanded features around customer-defined controls, online and mobile authentication.
The Resolution category saw great strides in advancements. Card fraud is highly pervasive with over 50% of identity fraud victims having at least one credit card account compromised on average. While card fraud dominated the identity fraud landscape, issuers were adept at resolving these incidences quickly. Two-thirds of card fraud victims whose issuers initially detected the fraud spent one hour or less to resolve the fraud.
“Protecting customers’ accounts is an enormous task, and, unfortunately for issuers, it’s often one that the customers themselves don’t make any easier. Customer-defined controls are an area where issuers still have a great deal of untapped opportunity for securing accounts”, said Al Pascual, Research Director and Head of Fraud & Security at JAVELIN. “Customers’ direct control over the authorization of transactions outside of a specific geographic area or at certain types of merchants can help issuers sidestep the process of analyzing data to identify fraudulent transactions, which is fraught with pitfalls.”
- USAA receives ‘Best in Class’: USAA edged out Bank of America to take the “Best in Class” longstanding title by one percentage point. USAA distinguished itself across the board with a robust feature set in every category, but is especially noteworthy in resolution for offering all features under evaluation. They offer credit monitoring, public information monitoring, and identity fraud insurance as add-on features, unlike most other issuers.
- Prevention is one of the hardest categories for fraud: Bank of America, USAA, Citibank, American Express, Chase and PNC standout from the rest of 20 credit card issuers JAVELIN evaluated. They succeeded by offering expanded features around customer-defined controls, online, and mobile authentication.
- Detection features the greatest divide among issuers: The top 5 credit card issuers in this category were: USAA, Bank of America, American Express, Wells Fargo and Capital One. These winners scored 72% to 97% of possible points, compared to an average of 28% and 51% for the fourth and third quartile of issuers. With the anticipated growth of account takeover, alerts around risk indicators, such as cash advances and changes of certain types of personally identifiable information (PII) provided major distinguishing factors for these leading issuers.
- Resolution remains the most broadly implemented category: USAA and PNC tied as leaders in resolution with perfect scores, closely followed by a tie among Bank of America, Citibank and SunTrust. Expedited card replacement and the ability to report a lost/stolen card from a mobile device distinguished top issuers in this category.
The study profiles the following credit card issuers: American Express, Bank of America, Barclays, BB&T, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Citizens Bank, Commerce Bank, Discover, Fifth Third, First National Bank of Omaha, Navy Federal Credit Union, Pentagon FCU, PNC, SunTrust, TD Bank, USAA, US Bank, and Wells Fargo.
View: JAVELIN's 2016 Consumer Identity Safety Leaders for Credit Card Issuers
Learn More about Report: 10th Annual Credit Card Issuer Identity Safety Scorecard
About JAVELIN
JAVELIN, a Greenwich Associates LLC company provides strategic insights into customer transactions, increasing sustainable profits for financial institutions, government, payments companies, merchants and other technology providers. JAVELIN’s independent insights result from a uniquely rigorous three-dimensional research process that assesses customers, providers, and the transactions ecosystem.
Media Contact:
Nancy Ozawa
Marketing Communications
(925) 219-0116
marketing@javelinstrategy.com
www.javelinstrategy.com
Twitter: @JavelinStrategy
