Mobile commerce has transformed how consumers shop. One-tap checkout, stored credentials and in-app wallets have removed friction and boosted conversion rates, but they have also created a highly attractive target for fraudsters. The mobile checkout sits at the centre of a delicate balance: delivering speed and convenience for genuine customers while stopping increasingly sophisticated fraud attacks. To achieve this, retailers attending the Fraud Prevent Summit are moving beyond static controls and embracing risk-based, intelligence-led payment security...
Why Mobile Payments Are a Prime Target
Mobile checkouts concentrate value and vulnerability in a single moment. Fraudsters exploit this by using stolen credentials, compromised devices, emulators and social-engineering techniques to make transactions appear legitimate.
Traditional defences, such as blanket authentication challenges or rigid rules, often fail in mobile environments, either letting fraud through or introducing friction that drives customers away. The result is a rise in false declines, abandoned baskets and chargebacks.
Risk-Based Authentication Replaces One-Size-Fits-All
Leading retailers are shifting to risk-based authentication, where security decisions adapt dynamically to each transaction.
Low-risk customers on trusted devices can complete purchases seamlessly, while higher-risk activity triggers step-up measures such as biometric verification or additional authentication. This approach reduces unnecessary friction while focusing protection where it matters most.
Risk signals typically include:
- Device integrity and history
- Behavioural patterns
- Transaction velocity
- Network and location anomalies
- Account tenure and prior activity
3-D Secure 2.3: Smarter, More Contextual Protection
The evolution of 3-D Secure (3DS) 2.3 has been critical for mobile commerce. Unlike earlier versions, 3DS 2.3 supports frictionless flows and richer data exchange, enabling issuers to make more accurate risk decisions without interrupting the customer journey.
Retailers using 3DS strategically, rather than applying it universally, are seeing:
- Lower fraud rates
- Higher authorisation rates
- Reduced customer frustration
- Stronger PSD2 compliance
Network Tokenisation and Biometrics Strengthen Trust
Network tokenisation replaces sensitive card data with secure tokens, dramatically reducing the risk of data compromise during mobile transactions. Combined with device-level biometrics such as fingerprint or facial recognition, tokenisation ensures that even if credentials are intercepted, they are unusable elsewhere.
These technologies allow retailers to protect payment data without slowing down checkout, preserving the speed customers expect from mobile shopping.
AI-Driven Risk Scoring at the Heart of Decision-Making
Artificial intelligence now underpins modern mobile payment security. AI-driven risk engines analyse thousands of signals in real time, learning from new fraud patterns and adapting continuously.
By integrating AI risk scoring across login, account activity and checkout, retailers can stop fraud before authorisation, rather than reacting after losses occur.
Securing the Future of Mobile Commerce
In an era of one-tap payments, security must be invisible, intelligent and adaptive. Retailers that combine risk-based authentication, 3DS 2.3, tokenisation, biometrics and AI will be best positioned to reduce fraud, protect revenue and deliver the seamless mobile experiences customers demand in 2026 and beyond.
Are you searching for solution to help combat Mobile Fraud? The Fraud Prevention Summit can help!
Photo by Rob Hampson on Unsplash
