Elavon reduces online cart abandonment with Transaction Risk Analysis

• Transaction Risk Analysis (TRA) by Elavon helps businesses reduce online cart abandonment and prevent fraud.
• TRA can be applied as a SCA exemption when transactions are low risk and Payment Service Provider (PSP) fraud rates are within certain thresholds.
• TRA showed transaction approval rates 3.6% above industry averages.
• White paper, Payments Optimisation: Maximise conversion, minimise fraud, is now available.

LONDON (16 June 2021) -- Elavon, a leading global payments company, is offering a new Transaction Risk Analysis (TRA) solution to help e-commerce businesses thrive by reducing online cart abandonment while preventing fraud.

According to the Payments Optimisation: Maximise conversion, minimise fraud white paper by Elavon, in 2020, e-commerce grew by 27.6% worldwide. At the same time, the online card fraud rate leapt 55% since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cart abandonment, meanwhile, where consumers drop out of online transactions during or before the checkout process, also rose sharply. According to recent figures, in October 2020, 88%¹ of online shoppers dropped out at the checkout, leaving billions behind in lost revenue. Not only was cart abandonment amplified as more people shopped online during the pandemic, but also with the implementation of additional security checks in the payments process, known as Strong Customer Authentication (SCA).

SCA is an integral part of the Second Payments Services Directive (PSD2) across the European Economic Area (EEA).

Businesses with a high volume of online sales are often hit hardest by the additional security requirements, which can make approvals slower. This latency and low acceptance can see almost one in five (19%) of payments lost.

Transaction Risk Analysis by Elavon can reduce the impact of these factors. TRA optimises the payments process helping provide a frictionless payment experience for consumers while preventing fraud by using real-time risk analysis and scoring.

Put simply, if a transaction is deemed low risk and the Payment Service Provider (PSP) fraud rate is within certain thresholds, it can be exempted from the SCA process. In these cases, Elavon’s TRA solution instantly analyses abnormal spending, location, device/software, malware and behavioural patterns. With TRA, cardholders can experience a frictionless checkout experience with exempted transactions sent straight to authorisation. 

Businesses using TRA by Elavon, including large retailers and airlines, experienced transaction approval rates up to 3.6% above industry averages. Increasing transaction approvals rates can help e-commerce businesses capture meaningful increases in revenue.

Hannah Fitzsimons, President and General Manager, Elavon Europe, says,

“We are delighted to bring Transaction Risk Analysis to market. It’s an innovative solution that helps businesses reduce online cart abandonment and optimise revenue whilst also preventing fraud. It underscores our commitment to be the most trusted choice for businesses looking for a payments partner.”

^{[1] Statista, “Shopping cart abandonment rate worldwide 2020 by industry”, March 2020}