Payment fraud attacks saw a 70% increase in 2021, Sift report says

Derived from Sift’s global network of over 34,000 sites and apps and a survey of over 1,000 consumers, the index reveals that the payment fraud attack rate (the rate of fraudulent transactions blocked by Sift out of total transactions) across fintech ballooned 70% in 2021—making it the highest increase across any vertical in Sift’s network. The increase in payment fraud also correlated with massive 121% growth in fintech transaction volumes on Sift’s network year-over-year, making this sector an attractive target for cybercriminals, the company press release explains.

According to Sift’s analysis, these rising attacks, blocked by Sift, were aimed primarily at alternative payments like digital wallets, which saw a 200% uptick in payment fraud, along with payments service providers (+169%), and cryptocurrency exchanges (+140%).

Sift has specifically seen these abuse tactics aimed at Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services, which saw a 54% year-over-year uptick in fraud attack rates. In late 2021, Sift specialists discovered a growing number of fraud schemes on Telegram offering unlimited access to BNPL accounts through fake credit card numbers and compromised email addresses—showcasing the array of methods actors in the fraud economy are using to target the entire fintech sector.

Along with network-wide growth in average daily transaction volumes across every industry, the Sift report saw an overall 23% surge in blocked payment fraud attacks in 2021. Concurrently, nearly half of survey respondents (49%) report that they’ve fallen victim to payment abuse over the past one to three years—and 41% of the victims experienced it in the last year alone. Of those victims, nearly one-third (33%) identified financial service sites as the ones that pose the highest risk, which could negatively affect customer trust in the industry.

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