Sage Partners To Help SMBs Tackle Online Payments Fraud

Sage North America, a provider of business management software and services to small and medium-sized businesses, said Monday (Oct. 26) that its Sage Payments Solution unit is teaming up with fraud solutions firm Kount.

Sage announced that its partnership with Kount will develop and market fraud detection products to SMBs.

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The initial mandate will be to develop card-not-present (CNP) security solutions. CNP is fraud that occurs when the card is not at the point of sale where the transaction takes place. The company said in its release that such fraud is expected to grow “exponentially,” citing research firm Aite Group. That firm said it sees CNP fraud as much as doubling in the United States from 2015 through 2018.

Paul Bridgewater, Sage Payments Solutions’ CEO, said that “with tokenization, the trend in Canada and Europe — where they experienced a significant shift from card-present fraud to card-not-present fraud — isn’t expected to repeat itself in the U.S. That said, fraudsters will continually evolve, and this unique offering will provide another line of defense for small and medium businesses. Sage wants to help ensure companies doing business online and over the phone are protected.”

Earlier this summer, in an interview with MPD’s Karen Webster, Bridgewater said that SMBs continue to be underserved in a fragmented market, and that is despite the fact that they drive the economy. The market remains a sizable one around the globe with 70 million SMBs operating. Within the United States, that tally stands at 3 million. Sage contends that SMBs benefit from guidance on the transition to EMV and the continual combat against payments fraud because executives spend the majority of their time immersed in the minutiae of running the business on a daily basis.

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