GoCardless launches Protect+ to help businesses fight fraud and retain revenue

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The introduction of its second 'payment intelligence' product comes as merchants facing economic headwinds look for ways to address lost revenue

LONDON, Oct. 24, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- GoCardless, a global leader in bank payment solutions, has launched Protect+, an end-to-end fraud prevention solution that detects fraudulent activity and protects merchants from potential losses through enhanced payer verification, 24/7 fraud monitoring and chargeback challenges.

With Protect+, merchants will be able to improve their overall percentage of successful payments, significantly reduce the costs associated with managing payer fraud, and protect both their revenue and reputation.

With 54% of businesses globally citing fraud as a 'top threat'¹ and 75% saying the current economic conditions motivate them to reduce the amount of revenue they lose due to fraud², the introduction of Protect+ offers an alternative to existing fraud prevention options, which many merchants find frustrating due to high costs (27%), the time required to administer (26%) and poor customer experience (21%).

Protect+, the second 'payment intelligence' product from GoCardless, combines data from the billions of transactions processed on its global bank payment network with custom parameters set by merchants to match their risk appetite. Protect+ detects and prevents three types of fraud:

• Identity fraud, when a fraudulent payer uses stolen or purchased bank account details (that may be valid or invalid).
• No intent to pay, when a fraudulent payer uses their own bank account, but has no intention to pay for the goods or services received.
• Unfair chargebacks, when a fraudulent payer uses their own bank account, but submits a chargeback after receiving the service or goods.

The launch of Protect+ comes as businesses around the world face a particularly challenging time. In a global survey covering the UK, US, France and Germany, 91% of merchants reveal the cost of running their business is higher than it was a year ago, rising to 96% in the US. A similar proportion (87%) are actively looking to cut costs.

In all four markets, the most popular tactic businesses would consider to improve their financial position over the next six months is to renegotiate more favourable terms with suppliers, with 43% saying it's "one of the first things" they'd consider, increasing to 51% for US businesses. This is followed closely by addressing sources of lost revenue, such as finding ways to increase conversion or reduce revenue lost to fraud (38%)³.

Duncan Barrigan, Chief Product Officer and Chief Growth Officer at GoCardless, said: "We're excited to launch Protect+ to help businesses not only weather the current macroeconomic climate, but also put themselves in a stronger position for the future. Protect+ identifies fraudulent payers and stops them in their tracks, protecting a company's reputation, revenue and the experience for genuine payers. And because Protect+ is built into our global bank payment network, you can manage your payments and protect against fraud, all on one platform."

Clare Bennett, Product Manager at Capital on Tap, said: "We've been closely involved in the development and pilot of Protect+, specifically for chargebacks which is very important to us as a company. So far we've been able to dispute 26 charges at a value of £36k, which we would have lost without GoCardless. We believe Protect+ will be a vital part of our payment strategy in the years ahead, helping to ensure we protect our revenue to power our growth."

Protect+ follows the launch earlier this year of another fraud prevention tool, Verified Mandates, which combines the Account Information Services (AIS) capabilities of open banking with direct debit to provide account verification at the point of sign-up.

Protect+ is also the second product in the 'payment intelligence' suite from GoCardless, a set of services which use proprietary machine learning models to optimise the way companies collect and retain their bank payments -- ensuring more successful payments, lower failure rates and less fraud. The first payment intelligence product, Success+, automatically optimises failed payment retries. Since launch, Success+ has helped businesses recover, on average, 70% of payments that initially fail.

Notes to Editors
For more information, contact:
Linda Yang, Head of PR, GoCardless
[email protected]
+44 7533575155

About GoCardless
GoCardless is the global leader in direct bank payment solutions, making it easy to collect recurring and one-off payments directly from customers' bank accounts through direct debit and open banking. The GoCardless global bank payment network and technology platform take the pain out of getting paid for 75,000 businesses worldwide, from multinational corporations to small businesses. Each year GoCardless processes more than US$30 billion of payments across more than 30 countries. GoCardless is headquartered in the UK, with additional offices in Australia, France and the United States. For more information, please visit www.gocardless.com and follow us on Twitter @GoCardless.

© 2022 GoCardless Ltd. All Rights Reserved. GoCardless is a registered trademark of GoCardless Ltd in multiple countries. Third party trademarks mentioned above are owned by their respective companies. Unless explicitly identified as such, nothing in this press release should be construed to the contrary, or as an approval, endorsement or sponsorship by any third parties of GoCardless Ltd. or any aspect of this press release.

¹ Survey of 500 recurring-payment businesses in the UK, US, France and Germany administered online through Attest during February 2021
² Survey of 500 business decision-makers in the UK, US, France and Germany administered online through Attest during September 2022
³ Ibid

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