During major sales events, digital transactions often surge significantly, making fraud management more critical than ever as each payment presents a potential opportunity for fraudsters to strike.
While admittedly a lot has been done to secure online shoppers and those using digital payments, it is important for shoppers and businesses to know how to protect themselves online.
Reports like the one released by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC)1 indicating that there was a 25% jump in phishing attacks during last year’s Black Friday shopping frenzy, a reflection of what happens during shopping season, is one of the reasons why.
This has now prompted African consumers to prioritise security and trust over product variety or price. 2 While payment service providers put in place measures to ensure that your money is safe, you, as the user, also have the responsibility to ensure that you do not make yourself vulnerable to fraud.
Fraud prevention is a partnership. To provide a few examples, be
mindful of phishing messages masquerading as deal alerts, fake websites mimicking trusted merchants and malicious QR codes planted in what appears to be legitimate promotional signage.
You may click on a link or share personal information, thinking you’re securing the bargain of a lifetime, only to hand over your data to someone unscrupulous.
Simple measures, such as covering your PIN, verifying merchant websites, and ignoring unsolicited SMS links, might seem rudimentary; however, their effectiveness is undeniable.
Businesses feel the heat too On the merchant side, whether you’re a boutique with a POS terminal or a large retailer running nationwide promotions through e-commerce, the business surge that comes with the festive season comes as both a blessing and a test.
The goal of most businesses is to establish a seamless checkout experience, characterised by fewer clicks, a faster tap-and-go process and minimal friction throughout the whole payment process.
Behind this rush, they should also be aware of what fraud looks like. For businesses accepting digital payments, fraud often appears as unauthorised or deceptive transactions that directly affect revenue, trust, and operational efficiency.
In card payments, it typically manifests through stolen or cloned card details used to make purchases, chargebacks arising from disputed transactions, or card-not-present fraud where criminals exploit weak authentication processes.
For mobile money, fraud can involve social engineering where staff are tricked into reversing payments, impersonation of customers or service providers, or
interception of a one-time password (OTP) that allows fraudulent transfers.
In online payment acceptance, threats include account takeovers, bot-driven fraudulent checkout attempts, and manipulation of weak website security features to conduct unauthorized transactions.
Understandably, it may be too much to ask a business, especially a small or medium-sized one, to monitor all these activities while managing its core functions and keeping things running.
That is why they need to partner with a payment service provider that offers a full suite of payment solutions. This means choosing a provider, like Network International (Network), that can deliver advanced fraud detection tools, real-time transaction monitoring, and multi-layered security features that safeguard every stage of the payment journey.
It should also offer seamless integration across card, mobile money, and online acceptance channels, enabling businesses to manage all transactions from a single, intuitive platform.
Beyond security, such a partner should provide ongoing support, timely insights, and automated processes that reduce manual work, freeing up business owners to focus on growth.
Technology: our strongest ally That said, fraud management is not a one-time effort. It is a continuous process that must continue as long as payments are being made.
As we speak, fraudsters are deploying new methods such as AI-driven bots, deepfakes and synthetic identities, prompting the need for our defences to evolve at pace as well.
Recently, Mastercard[3] emphasised that fraudsters are now faster, more equipped and connected due to their use of AI, infostealers and other tools
to automate attacks.
Moreover, to keep pace with modern payment threat intelligence, it is now crucial for cyber and fraud teams to share data to help build more robust systems.
As digital payments grow faster and smarter, the same can be said for the threats that accompany them. Security now plays the role of the backbone of trust in every transaction and protecting it requires everyone to play their part.
For consumers, it means staying alert and safeguarding personal data. For businesses, it means partnering with trusted payment providers, creating secure checkout experiences and building fraud prevention systems that scale.
For fintech professionals, it’s about staying ahead of tech-savvy criminals who are now using AI and automation.
