Identity trust and digital fraud protection specialist, Kount recently launched its adaptive protection solution, Kount Control, which is the industry’s first solution to prevent account takeover fraud.

The Chief Customer Experience Officer at Kount Control, Rich Stuppy spoke to Payment Expert about the firm and why it’s crucial companies continue to understand fraud and the risks associated with each login. 

Payment Expert: Can you tell us more about Kount Control? 

Rich Stuppy: Kount Control is a solution to stop account takeovers from malicious logins and bots while enabling personalised customer experiences. It combines three key layers: a protection layer to prevent credential stuffing, detect bots, stop brute force attacks, and protect against password spraying. 

The policy/customisation layer enables businesses to fine-tune protection, and the reporting/data presentation layer helps businesses uncover trends in the fraud prevention data.  Kount Control is the only ATO solution built on the Identity Trust Global Network, linking risk and trust signals from location data, digital identifier data, and unique customer data to enable accurate account protection in real time.

Payment Expert: How important is it that companies understand the risk of each login? 

Rich Stuppy: By understanding the risk or trust associated with each login, businesses are able to deliver a personalised user experience. High risk, low trust interactions are often an indicator of fraud, and should be blocked. 

Low risk, high trust interactions should not only be allowed through, but given the VIP treatment as these are likely returning customers. Trust and risk levels in the middle of this spectrum can be introduced to step-up authentication to verify the interaction. That personalised user experience both protects the business from fraud while also improving brand reputation for good customers. 

Payment Expert: What are some of the key elements that help users benefit from Kount Control and how can they ensure they maximize it? 

Rich Stuppy: The reporting/data layer of Kount Control is one way users can truly maximise Kount’s capabilities to deliver customised user experiences. Kount provides multi-dimensional data and real-time reporting, revealing valuable customer insights that can be used to fine-tune business policies and provide customised experiences. Login trend data, including device and IP information, is rarely available to fraud teams. With the ability to quickly identify and report on failed login attempts, risky IPs, compromised accounts, and inbound anomalies, businesses can stop account takeover attempts, and uncover trends that enrich their own data and inform future policies.

Payment Expert: Why is it so crucial to users that Kount Control is adaptive and customizable? 

Kount Control’s adaptive, customisable solution is crucial to users because it isn’t a blunt tool approach that creates poor user experiences and brand damage. Instead, Kount Control provides the capability to customise user experiences and reduce friction by identifying and segmenting users based on common characteristics, such as VIP or trial users. Unlike other solutions, Kount Control provides a rich set of essential data for delivering adaptive friction with the necessary precision. 

Some users are higher risk, some users are no-risk, and some users might require a personalised experience. Creating policies based on rich data from Kount’s Identity Trust Global Network, businesses can decide what type of experience to deliver to their customer, from low friction to step-up authentication.

Payment Expert: Why is it important that the industry evolves to combat takeover fraud?

Rich Stuppy: Fraud prevention is no longer something that can, or should, be accomplished at the payment transaction page alone. Consider the costs of account takeover: if a consumer experiences the negative impacts of an ATO, such as having personal information stolen or account values drained, that consumer will not return and will likely tell others of their experiences.  

Instead, agile companies should be considering fraud prevention and customer experience at every step of the digital customer journey. This mindset paired with the right tools can help companies maximise revenue, build brand reputation, and minimise manual reviews all while preventing fraud.