AmEx digital payments survey highlights US merchants’ security concerns

New research from American Express has highlighted the concerns over cybercrime and fraud felt by US merchants. The 2019 Digital Payments Survey revealed that two-thirds of US merchants (69%) reported that a significant amount of company time and expense is dedicated to dealing with payment fraud. Nearly eight-in-ten US merchant respondents (77%) reported that their companies experienced some type of fraud over the course of being in business, and their efforts to manage security are impacting their businesses’ bottom lines.

US merchants surveyed estimate an average of 27% of their annual online sales to be fraudulent transactions, a significant increase from 18% in 2018. Compared to last year, significantly more merchants agree that their business is vulnerable to payment fraud across multiple channels, including mobile transactions (82%, up from 73% in 2018), their website (79%, up from 74% in 2018), and point-of-sale payments (66%, up from 55% in 2018).

As a result, many merchants are investing more in payment data security, with survey respondents reporting that they spent an average of 33% of their IT budget this year on payment data security, up from 27% last year.