UK lags Europe in collaborating on identity fraud

UK businesses appear to be lagging their European counterparts when it comes to intelligence sharing to tackle fraudulent criminal activity.

A survey of businesses in the UK, France, Germany, and Spain by GBG has revealed 81 percent of European businesses believe cross-sector collaboration and intelligence sharing is key to stemming the rising tide of fraudulent criminal activity.

More than two thirds (70 percent) of European businesses are currently part of an identity intelligence consortium, which connect transactions taking place around the world and share international consumer intelligence between businesses, across sectors and national borders.

However, only 64 percent of UK businesses are part of an identity intelligence consortium compared with 82 percent in France, 85 percent in Germany and 74 percent in Spain. This is despite appetite for collaboration in the UK being strong with a third of UK businesses who are not currently a member of such a consortium saying they think they should join one. Only three percent of UK respondents said they do not think they should join.

Laura Barrowcliff, global head of GBG Trust, GBG, said: “It is encouraging to see large numbers of European businesses already benefiting from cross-sector collaboration, although it is somewhat concerning that some businesses are slower to act. Fraudsters operate across huge and growing digital ecosystems and, for businesses, there is a huge value to sharing across borders and sectors to stop them in their tracks.”

Barriers to collaboration

Three quarters (75 percent) of businesses surveyed believe organisations are too worried about maintaining a competitive advantage to participate in collaboration to combat fraud. 80 percent believe global governments are not doing enough to support cross-sector collaboration. This is despite the fact that 31 percent of businesses say it’s extremely difficult to identify fraudsters at the point of onboarding.

“Sharing consumer intelligence to combat fraud does not mean a business will lose its competitive advantage – this is a myth that needs to be busted and fast,” said Barrowcliff. “Businesses do not share raw data within consortia, but anonymised patterns and insights on confirmed or suspicious fraud. This has a huge benefit for all businesses – regardless of sector. Afterall, criminals don’t limit fraud attacks to one business, industry or stop at national boundaries either.

“If businesses are not part of such a group, they risk losing out because they will not benefit from the early insights that can pre-empt crime detection and stop fraudsters before ever entering a business. Alarmingly a third (31 percent) of businesses say it’s extremely difficult to identify fraudsters at the point of onboarding – it’s critical this is reduced.”