69% of Indian consumers believe their data is valuable to businesses says Experian 2020 Global Identity & Fraud Report

–          Globally, two thirds of consumers said security is still the most important factor when deciding to engage a business, followed closely by ease of access to their accounts

–          Fraud poses significant challenge for businesses worldwide, with 57% of businesses seeing rising year-on-year fraud losses linked to account opening and account takeover fraud

MUMBAI, 23 June 2020: Experian, one of the leading credit bureaus and data analytics and decisioning companies today released the Experian 2020 Global Identity & Fraud Report. One of the key findings is that consumers seem to have a heightened awareness about the value of their information with about 69% of Indian consumers saying they like the changes being made to the customer experience as a result of their data being used.

Another significant finding is that the key factors to meaningful online customer engagement are identifying and recognizing consumers periodically. While Indian businesses ranked the highest at 100% in being confident in their ability to identify customers, 35% customers felt unrecognised by businesses. Additionally, about 54% of businesses in India currently use advanced analytics (a hybrid of supervised/unsupervised machine learning + business rules) for identity authentication and fraud prevention. More sophisticated authentication strategies and advanced fraud detection tools will allow businesses to accurately identify and continually re-recognise their customers, reducing their exposure to risk and ultimately leading to increased trust in such organisations.

“Experian’s 2020 Global Identity and Fraud Report shows that while the challenge of identity is a large part of every customer decision, the desire for a better experience, and concerns around security still form the core of the digital relationship between customers and businesses. Businesses today need to deliver more than personalised products and offers; they also need to deliver on customer expectations for security and convenience at every step of the digital journey,” said Sathya Kalyanasundaram, Country Head and Managing Director, Experian India.

Globally, while 95% of businesses are confident in their ability to identify customers digitally, more than half of consumers across the globe do not feel recognised when engaging with businesses online. Over half of the businesses surveyed are prioritising the creation of targeted products and offers while collecting more personal information to do so. Additionally, 84% of businesses believe if they can better identify customers, then they will more easily spot the fraud.

Over 90% of businesses feel these new identity propositions play an important role in re-recognising their customers but no one approach has broadly taken hold yet. Many businesses are familiar with their emergence and are in ‘wait and watch’ mode as the technology evolves and consumer interest grows. Regardless of which identity proposition is adopted by a business, the need to establish the verifiable claims that constitute a person’s identity is fundamental to doing business digitally.

Experian interviewed 6,500 consumers and more than 650 businesses from across 13 countries including India, Mainland China, Japan, Indonesia, Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Germany/Austria, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, and Columbia. Experian’s 2020 Global Identity and Fraud Report explores inconsistencies between businesses’ views of their ability to meet their customers’ needs and customer experiences with those businesses.

Additional findings from Experian’s 2020 Global Identity and Fraud Report include:

• 57% businesses are seeing higher losses associated with account opening and account takeover fraud, in the past 12 months.
• Over half the businesses are prioritising the creation of targeted products and offers.
• 66% of consumers understand the value of their personal information to businesses.
• 88% of consumers want more control over the use of their data.

Experian’s 2020 Global Identity and Fraud Report also shows how different regions across the globe view and manage fraud:

• In Brazil, 93% of consumers want more sophisticated security in the form of facial recognition, compared to 63% in China.
• While 95% of businesses globally claim to have high confidence in their ability to identify and re-recognise their customers at every interaction, the lowest confidence is in the Netherlands with 82%.
• Consumers in the U.S. value their data the most, with 74% of consumers seeing value to them personally. Colombian consumers were the lowest with 5% of consumers.
• Globally, 88% of consumers like the changes being made to the customer experience as a result of their data being used. Consumers in APAC top the list at 89% and Europe (including UK) follows closely behind at 82%.

Experian’s identity and fraud business comprises of nearly 300 fraud experts around the world working to protect people’s identities and fight fraud for businesses across multiple sectors, including financial services, telecommunications, retail/e-commerce, insurance, government, and healthcare.