Last week, over 1600 attendees from 30 countries came together at MRC Vegas 19 to discuss fraud, payments, and risk in the e-commerce space. Sift was at the show, engaged in speaking sessions and demos, and soaking in the experiences, wisdom, and best practices shared by our fellow attendees. What were some of our biggest takeaways from this year’s show?
Rise of the Bots
In Theresa Payton’s keynote talk, she predicted that this year, “AI bots [will] adapt to evolve and commit cybercrimes without human intervention.”
Account Takeover is Top of Mind
Account takeover (ATO) is a rapidly growing concern for businesses, and it was in the spotlight at MRC Vegas 19. One business mentioned during their session that they had “a lot of account takeover,” and their product team was concerned with maintaining an easy signup flow without implementing additional security measures, even if it means less ATO in the future.
This resonates with Sift, as we’re leading the charge in Digital Trust & Safety to ensure businesses don’t need to choose between fraud prevention and customer satisfaction, whether they’re fighting ATO or another fraud issue.
Networking Continues to Provide Value
In response to an audience question during her speaking session, Brittany Allen from LetGo mentioned that once she noted that an attendee didn’t have an exhibitor badge, she could ask for their unbiased opinion on tools they’re using or problems they’re facing.
This is especially useful advice for those that are new to the industry. We were approached by fraud leads that just wanted to understand the basics and get up to speed on the teams we’ve led prior to Sift.
Data Consortiums Are Becoming the Norm
Historically, companies have been reluctant to contribute to these due to discomfort with sharing proprietary information and not wanting to help competitors. That outlook has shifted, as it now feels like there is positive momentum towards anonymously sharing and helping the entire fraud-fighting ecosystem, in the spirit of standing up against fraudsters.
The Online Fraudcast with Brett Johnson and Karisse Hendrick covered this topic this month, so it was validating to hear and see how opinions on working together are gradually moving in a productive, beneficial direction.
Speed is Sexy
From transaction completion times to latency, many attendees stressed the importance of speed and how they’re implementing it into their services and capabilities. This is important for businesses to consider as they scale; teams are now responsible for so many more reviews, orders, and accounts than they were in the past, when their focus was mainly on payments.
Teams need to find speed gains and use systems that enable speed and are inherently fast.
Until Next Year!
Every year, we find ourselves inspired at MRC Vegas by the progress happening in our industry and the strides being made towards greater fraud prevention and making the internet a safer place for everyone. We’re looking forward to seeing what we’ll take away from next year’s show, and hope to see you there!