• by Ray Schultz , January 15, 2018

Online transactions grew by 19% during the 2017 holiday season. But fraud increased even more — by 22%, according to benchmark data from ACI.

Fraud attempts were the highest on Thanksgiving day — 1.94%, up from 1.78% in 2016. And they hit a rate of 1.78% on Christmas Eve compared with 1.48% in 2016.

According to ACI, the fraud uptick was driven by shipment cutoff, consumer traffic and buy-online pickup in store transactions.

Despite this increase, fraud accounted for one out of every 85 transactions in 2017, down from one out of 97 last year and one out of 109 in 2015.

Overall purchase volume recorded increased from January to October, by 14%, compared to the same period in the prior year.

 ACI studied hundreds of millions of transactions, using its ReD Shield technology.

 “The consistent, alarming uptick in fraudulent activity on key dates is a signal that merchants must be proactive in their efforts to identify weak points across the omnichannel payment process — and define the short- and long-term strategies necessary to improve security and enhance customer experience,” states Erika Dietrich, Director of Risk Management, ACI Worldwide.