Fraud prevention has always been integral to both big and small businesses, and it is more important than ever right now. According to data from the FTC, imposter scams increased significantly over the course of 2020, causing $3.3 billion in consumer losses, up from $1.8 billion in 2019. Online shopping, spurred by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, saw a particular surge in fraud cases. Combined with an increasingly global marketplace, businesses are facing new risks associated with every new opportunity for growth.

To combat this worrisome trend, GIACT—a Refinitiv company and an industry leader in payments and identity fraud prevention—has announced the addition of a new global consumer and business identity verification solution called gIDENTIFY® Global to its EPIC Platform®.

To learn more about how gIDENTIFY Global can help bring trust back into transactions, PaymentsJournal sat down with James Mirfin, Global Head of Digital Identify and Fraud Solutions at Refinitiv, and Tim Sloane, VP of Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group.

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What gIDENTIFY Global can offer

GIACT just recently announced the launch of gIDENTIFY Global. “What we’re launching is the ability for our customers to verify the identity of individuals and businesses across 38 countries around the globe through the existing integrations that they have with us,” said Mirfin.

With gIDENTIFY Global, GIACT is building upon their pre-existing identity verification processes. According to the GIACT web site, the gIDENTIFY product “optimize(s) your identification processes by using multiple data sources to confirm customer and business identities in real time.” By expanding to the global marketplace, GIACT can help organizations more effectively grow their business internationally, mitigate fraud, and address KYC (know your customer) to help meet compliance, underwriting, and risk management requirements. In essence, GIACT is increasing its coverage across several worldwide markets to deliver on a global scale what its customers already rely upon in the U.S.

The timing could not be better. According to Sloane, consumer losses have been mounting in the areas of bank fraud, credit fraud, loan and lease fraud, and more. Mirfin remarked, “We think this is a way to give our customers confidence and to ultimately help protect their customers from these types o...