Foreword

This report, sponsored by SAS, picks up the threads from a research study that examined how the growth of digital payments in the private and public sectors directly changed the way fraud was perpetrated and mitigated at the beginning stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in 2019. That SAS-sponsored report, titled The Escalation of Digital Fraud: Global Impact of the Coronavirus, was published in October 2020 by Javelin Strategy & Research. Javelin maintains complete independence in its data collection, findings, and analysis.

Overview

The following report, written for financial service providers, gathers findings from across multiple international regions for the purpose of understanding the influence that fraud and COVID-19 continue to have on digital growth and payment innovation. The World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, and according to the organization’s COVID-19 dashboard, as of July 22, 2022, there have been at least 564,126,546 cumulative cases of the disease, resulting in an estimated 6,371,354 deaths despite 12,166,921,655 worldwide administered doses of vaccine.1 As contemporary society continues to adapt to extended periods of isolation, emerging COVID-19 variants, and the resultant supply chain issues, digital lifestyles continue to evolve. Consumers are now leading digitally infused lives that, by design, transform pre-pandemic transactional experiences into new digital opportunities to socialize, move funds, and engage in transactions where more traditional methods fall short. Criminals, unsurprisingly, are also exploiting digital channels with equal measure as growing incidents of account-based fraud continue to accelerate.