Travel has gone mobile. But with new customer channels come new challenges, one of which is eliminating the threat from fraudsters without compromising the convenience expected by mobile travellers.
NB: This is an analysis by David Pope, marketing director at Jumio.
Card fraud in the airline industry is a massive, ongoing problem and the current estimate is that card fraud is costing the industry over a billion dollars a year
It’s not as if this is something the carriers don’t already know and aren’t already addressing. Arguably, the airline industry is well ahead of other sectors in terms of addressing the threat of card fraud.
If we look at the impact of the intervention work that IATA's Perseuss has done across the globe, the good work that PROFiT (Prevention of Fraud in Travel) is doing in the UK and the many and various conferences and events covering the topic, then the travel industry possesses a far more cohesive and communicative set of fraud prevention and payment managers than other industries.
Of course the criminals and card fraudsters are only one side of the equation. Most fraud managers are only too aware that they can shut fraud out, but at the cost of either rejecting legitimate customers or making for such a laborious experience that good customers abandon the transaction.
On the thorny issue of abandonment, stats show that 66% of mobile device users regularly abandon transactions. Factor in "look-to-book" and “availability checks”, and abandonment in the travel sector is likely to be even higher.
This could paint a bleak picture for the fraud and payments teams in the airline industry - constantly under fire from criminals committing fraud and under pressure from customers wanting a quick and convenient mobile experience.
But computer vision technology could be the answer to creating a mobile customer experience that addresses fraud prevention and transaction abandonment at the same time.
At Jumio we enable airlines with computer vision technology that turns a customer’s mobile device into a payment card and ID document scanner. With Jumio embedded in their apps, carriers can transform what can be a laborious two minute experience of tapping in up to 70 keystrokes and turn that into a quick, simple scan of a payment card and an ID document.
The result? Fewer transactions are abandoned because booking is quicker and simple, while criminals using stolen card numbers without the actual card move onto an easier target.
And what if this technology could help carriers comply with advance passenger information system (APIS) requirements at the same time?
Both United Airlines and easyJet have recently integrated Jumio’s technology to verify their passengers through the simple scanning of identity documents within their respective mobile apps.
When passengers scan their ID documents, Jumio instantly extract APIS data including name, date of birth, gender, nationality and passport number and pass that data into the carrier’s systems.
With APIS compliance requirements satisfied, the carrier can issue a mobile boarding pass so the passenger can skip the queues at check in delivering a quicker and easier mobile experience.
Consumers want and demand convenience. We live in a society of time-poor consumers so getting the balance between making travel easy whilst maintaining an uncompromising stance on security is crucial.
Using computer vision technology is the way to bridge the gap between ‘customer not present’ and ‘customer present’ scenarios, whilst making mobile experiences quicker and easier.
NB: This is an analysis by David Pope, marketing director at Jumio. It appears here as part of Tnooz's sponsored content initiative.
NB2: Jumio hosted a webinar with Tnooz earlier this month called "Saying goodbye to travel check-in queues." Click here to access a recording of the event.
NB3: Web fraud image by Shutterstock