Maximizing your revenue is one of the main things you think about as a businessperson — Any money you lose to costs, leakage, or other factors directly impacts your bottom line. One area that can cause a big problem is fraud, especially credit card fraud. Fraud detection and mitigation is important. It’s estimated that around the world, organizations lose up to 5% of their revenue from fraud of one type or another. Add to that the man hours wasted tracking down, reporting, and trying to collect on fraudulent transactions, and the actual costs are likely much higher.
Kount Overview
The company states that business had 98% fewer chargebacks after implementing Kount and saw a 2.2% - 5.8% increase in bottom-line sales. Kount provides services in two main areas: Fraud Reduction Analyzes data points around real-time transactions to identify and minimize business losses from fraud. Kount also helps with chargeback management and prevention so you don't lose out through chargebacks. Boosting Sales Businesses can spend time that would otherwise be used chasing fraudulent transactions growing revenue in other areas, using Kount’s business intelligence and reporting tools. Related Article: How to Fight “Friendly Fraud.”Kount’s Product Line
The services and products available from Kount fall into four main groups:- Online fraud monitoring for accepting credit and debit cards where the card isn’t present at the point of sale.
- Providing fraud protection for credit card payment gateways, payment providers, banks, and ecommerce providers.
- Login protection for high-volume account login / creation websites. Designed to prevent malicious hacking into accounts and records.
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide insights about business performance.
Anti-Fraud
Kount focuses heavily on anti-fraud tools in a variety of ways. It provides fraud monitoring and detection for online businesses, ecommerce stores, or other environments where a credit card isn’t presented in person. It’s designed for most types of online business, including retailers, affiliate marketers, utility providers, travel providers, B2B, ticketing, events, and more.Anti-Fraud Technology
Kount Complete uses several different types of technology to detect fraudulent transactions, including:Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence uses multiple data points to predict whether a transaction might be fraudulent. It combines this with global trend tracking to see where, when, and how fraudulent transactions are happening in real time.Device and User Information
“Fingerprinting” is used to track the electronic signatures of various devices. This is supplemented with geolocation and IP tracking to learn where transactions are being made from. That includes software to detect if a proxy server is being used to hide real locations.Multiple Data Points
Transactions are “scored” to see if they pass a target threshold for being a genuine transaction. Cross-business data lets Kount understand whether transactions are being made across multiple businesses at once. It also uses the speed and quantity of transactions being made from a particular credit or debit card to understand risk. Decisions on individual transactions are made in around a third of a second and integrated back into your transaction and credit card acceptance flow. This means that using Kount Complete does not slow down the checkout process, and will be completely invisible to your customers.Information You’ll Get from Kount
Kount presents several different kinds of information back to you, including:Details of Each Transaction
Get insight into every individual transaction that’s made. You’ll see transaction summaries, customer information, payment details, and more. Best of all, you can customize the dashboard to show what’s most important to you.Locations of Transactions
See where in the world transactions are coming from, including any areas where there’s a higher risk of fraud.Customized Reports
See the historic trends on how your customers are buying from your business and set up your dashboard to give you the insight you need. You can choose from different types of graphs for visual representation of the data.Kount Central
Kount Central is designed for a particular type of business — Ones that are part of the ecosystem of accepting, managing, approving, transacting, and various other aspects of credit card payments. That typically means payment gateways, payment processors, banks, card networks, ecommerce platforms, shopping cart providers, and related businesses. It’s designed to give high-quality fraud protection, increased transaction acceptance rates, reduced chargebacks, and less need for manual review of transactions.Types of Fraud Protection
Kount provides four levels of service:Kount Central Enterprise
Allows providers to integrate Kount Complete with their other payment offerings and provide a complete suite to their clients.- No need for businesses to integrate Kount / fraud protection separately
- Full access for businesses to Kount Complete
- Integrated solution - quick to setup and easy to use
- Reduce customer churn by providing additional features
- Allows selling of a “white label” fraud protection solution
Kount Central Fraud Manager
Allows payment infrastructure providers to give their customers a branded interface to manage and monitor their own fraud and risk reports and thresholds.- Designed for small and medium-sized businesses
- Allows them self-manage their fraud and risk thresholds
- Can be sold as a “white label” solution — Providers can brand it however they want
- Doesn’t need to be separately integrated with IT
Kount Central Portfolio Manager
Gives payment infrastructure providers the ability to monitor their entire portfolio of businesses and transactions. Allows review of transactions from all sources for identification of fraud.- Reviews all transactions across the whole portfolio / business
- Can help to meet regulatory and compliance needs
- Identify risk areas in the portfolio
- Identify problematic areas / businesses so proactive actions can be taken
Kount Central Continuous Underwriting
Continually monitors accounts for risky behavior and fraud.- Early identification of potential issues
- Proactive management of merchant accounts
- Monitors data points to provide a continually updated risk profile for each business
- Protects payment infrastructure providers from account abuse
Kount Access
Kount Access isn’t specifically for preventing transaction fraud, instead it’s about protecting your logins, accounts, and databases from malicious actors. Hackers often use “brute force” and other tactics to try and get access to an account from a business or payment services provider. This can involve sophisticated software / hardware, social engineering, and various other means to guess login and password combinations. Breaches and hacks like this are a significant issue for many businesses. Kount Access protects against this, together with account creation issues, affiliate networks, and other fraud. For account takeovers, that means identifying fraudsters when they try to login to accounts and prevent them from accessing sensitive information. It can also be applied to account creation, preventing hackers from creating new accounts or getting access to your products and services. The software is especially good at preventing brute force attacks, but can even detect seemingly innocuous, low-level fraud like multiple users sharing a single password.How Kount Access Detects Fraudulent Logins
The system works as follows:- Kount Access records multiple data points about each logon attempt including:
- The ID of the device logging in.
- The location and IP address of the device.
- The number of devices trying to access the same account.
- How often the login for a specific account is being used.
- The number of different password attempts.
- Data and analytics are returned to the client and their systems can decide whether to allow or block access, or trigger more authentication steps.
- The whole process takes milliseconds and is completely invisible to the end user.
Other Uses for Kount Access
Kount Access isn’t just limited to detecting login fraud. It can also be used to verify account holder details, location, and more and help providers decide if they should offer specific products or services. For example, it can check that everyone accessing their account is a legitimate user. It can also understand where the user is located, which is very useful for location-specific services. That can help businesses meet compliance regulations on services or products that are offered to various types of account holders.Kount AI Services
Kount AI services are designed to provide insights about business based on multiple data points, machine learning, monitoring, and several other areas. Kount uses this information to make adjustments to its risk profiles and fraud detection algorithms across its network. It uses anonymized data to provide some of this information to customers, so they can better manage fraud detection thresholds, and focus on improving sales. Kount AI Services provide four distinct types of service for a business.Machine Learning Rules Review
Kount’s data analysts will review your business metrics, goals, and objectives and help you create specific rules for maximizing fraud detection and revenue generation. This will help you understand likely future performance and targets.Custom Data Review
Exploration of how data from your business is being transmitted to and used by Kount. This includes how it's used to manage your risk and fraud profile, and suggestions on other metrics and data you can use to enhance fraud detection.Platform Performance Analysis
Allows business owners to analyze how the Kount platform is positively affecting their business and reducing fraud. It can help to uncover gaps in fraud coverage and lets you implement recommendations to reduce risk and the possibility of fraudulent transactions.Data Orchestration Hub Analysis and Implementation
Uses high-quality, detailed data from third-party providers and risk management information to enhance fraud detection. You can also get training on how to use other data sources to enhance fraud detection even more.Uses for Kount
Kount states that its services are particularly useful in several specific areas:Mobile Commerce
Mobile devices are commonly used in fraud, and it can sometimes be difficult to detect problematic activity. Kount’s fraud protection uses multiple signals from mobile devices to detect and reduce fraud. This includes user authentication, device and geographic data, and other real time data elements. This gives businesses more confidence in making their online stores mobile enabled, which can significantly improve customer reach and revenue.Reducing Chargebacks
Chargebacks happen when a credit card transaction is challenged. Chargebacks can occur for many reasons, with one of the main ones being fraud (e.g. stolen credit card information). Chargebacks are costly to businesses — Not only do you lose the value of the sale, you will also have to pay a chargeback fee (typically between $15 and $30). Fraud detection and elimination naturally reduces chargebacks. Related Content: Complete Guide to Chargebacks.Stopping Payment Fraud
Online payments are increasing in complexity, with many more payment providers, channels, and methods. Kount provides an overall view and matches this with your risk profile and multiple data points to proactively detect and reduce fraud. It also works with various ecommerce platforms and other providers.Stopping Account Takeover Fraud
Existing user accounts are a major target for hackers. Kount can help to prevent access to unauthorized users and uses multiple monitoring and other factors to detect legitimate account logins. Data breaches and hacks can cause very significant financial, regulatory, and reputational damage to a business. Related Article: Should you get data breach insurance?Reduce Manual Reviews
One of the biggest costs for online retail businesses is using resources to manually review orders. Kount can reduce the number of orders needing manual review to 2%-3% by providing much better, up-front fraud screening.Costs to Use Kount
The cost to use Kount varies depending on a number of things, including the service(s) needed, number of transactions, and other factors. However, the company does publish starting costs, as follows: Essentials plan: $0.07 per transaction Advanced plan: $1,000 per month Plans are tailored to your specific needs and may be more or less expensive depending on the specifics of your solution. You can contact Kount sales to get pricing for your needs.Additional Details
Below are other details that you may need to know, including installation information, payment types, existing customers, and options for training and support.Installing and Using Kount
Kount claims that installing its services is fast and easy. They have approached product design and installation from a merchant’s perspective, with the assumption they are not IT or fraud experts. They claim the system can be setup and providing fraud protection within several hours, and that it is easy to use once it is in place.Types of Payments Accepted by Kount
Kount monitors transactions and payments of any type, made from a credit or debit card. They monitor payments from over 180 countries around the world and can be easily integrated into ecommerce platforms like Magento and Demandware.Platforms that use Kount
Kount is already integrated into a number of payment infrastructure platforms and companies including: 3D Cart, BlueSnap, Braintree, Chase Paymentech, Demandware, GoECart, Lime Light, Magento, Oracle, and more.Training and Support
Kount provides one-to-one training in installing and using its products. It also provides customer service and support over the phone or via email. Additionally, Kount provides integrations, APIs and SDKs to allow developers to effortlessly integrate their fraud detection services into pre-built or custom-made payment and transaction platforms.Kount Reviews
There are not many reviews of Kount online. This could be because the services are mainly pitched at medium to large businesses and payment providers. There was one review of Kount on G2Crowd, which scored the software at 4 out of 5 stars. The reviewer said the software was easy to use, had helped them prevent fraud, and drastically reduced chargebacks. They also liked the reporting in Kount, and how it clearly showed the impact of the detection and prevention rules they had in effect. They described Kount as robust and user-friendly. Another review that compared Kount and Signifyd (another fraud protection solution) highlighted Kount’s customization rules and features. Although claiming Kount was more difficult to setup than its competitor, the reviewer felt the customized fraud prevention strategy that Kount offered made the software worth the cost. A review on Capterra gave Kount 5 out of 5 stars. The reviewer suffered from fraudulent transactions and chargebacks on PayPal purchases and searched for a fraud prevention solution. When talking about Kount, they said that chargebacks slowed quickly, allowing them time to focus on sales rather than fraud investigation. Magento, an ecommerce platform provider, also offers reviews of third-party products, including Kount. The reviewers gave Kount an average of 4 out of 5 stars, with four separate businesses providing strong positive testimonials for the software. Finally, CrowdReviews also gave Kount an average of 4 out of 5 stars. The reviewers were generally very happy with the product, with the only downside being that the feature-set of Kount can take some getting used to, as there are so many rules and parameters that can be customized and tweaked.Conclusion
Overall, Kount provides a valuable service — Fraud detection. Every business needs to protect their bottom line, and Kount looks to be a robust solution for doing just that. If you want to reduce losses, eliminate chargebacks, protect your data, and maximize profit, it’s definitely worth a look. Bear in mind though that due to the sophistication of the product, it may take a little experimentation and tweaking to get the most out of it. If you’ve used Kount, let us know what you think! Leave a comment below.
Ben Dwyer
Ben Dwyer began his career in the processing industry in 2003 on the sales floor for a Connecticut‐based processor. As he learned more about the inner‐workings of the industry, rampant unethical practices, and lack of assistance available to businesses, he cut ties with his employer and started a blog where he could post accurate information about credit card processing. As the blog gained in popularity, Ben began directly assisting merchants in their search for a processor. Ben believes in empowering businesses by providing access to fair, competitive pricing, accurate information, and continued support. His dedication to transparency and education has made CardFellow a staunch small business advocate in the credit card processing industry.
