Consumers Express Concerns over New Payment Protection Regulations

Monday, October 21, 2019 - 13:40 by Graham Miller

Efforts to improve the availability of safe shopping online and fight back against fraud across the UK and Europe may be picking up momentum thanks to recently introduced regulations, but consumers are either unaware of the much-debated changes or are sceptical about whether the benefits outweigh the pitfalls.

This is according to a new survey conducted by Riskified which involved both retailers and their customers alike, with just over three-quarters of consumers admitting that they had not heard about the Payment Services Directive 2 or any of its implications for online transactions.

It was due to come into force at the start of last month, but regulators were forced to push back the deadline for compliance until the end of next year because of issues raised about the convenience of the multi-factor authentication that it introduced.

Close to a third of shoppers questioned in the study said that they would probably abandon purchases on e-commerce sites which required them to enter an authentication code sent via SMS in order to process the payment securely.

This poses problems for consumers as well as for retailers, since ultimately it might benefit businesses to be slow to adopt the new measures in order to avoid customers looking elsewhere for their e-commerce fix.

Study spokesperson Eido Gal said that although fraud was becoming increasingly commonplace in the digital age, it was important to make sure that the layers of protection which were put in place did not have a detrimental effect on the customer experience or sales performance.

Gal argued that retailers should take it upon themselves to both comply with the new regulations and also make sure that, in doing so, they were not likely to cause consternation amongst customers who still want a slick experience at the online checkout.