Sift Partners With McDonald’s On Mobile App Fraud

Sift, which works in digital trust and safety, will partner with McDonald’s in order to strengthen cybersecurity and prevent fraud, a press release says.

Sift’s experience will lend cybersecurity help to the McDonald’s app in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania, the release says.

“For quick-service restaurants, getting the user experience right – especially on mobile apps – while preventing fraud can be a difficult balancing act,” said Marc Olesen, CEO & president of Sift. “We’re excited to be a part of McDonald’s Digital Trust & Safety strategy that enables them to streamline the customer experience associated with mobile orders.”

McDonald’s will gain access to Sift’s machine learning and global data network for customers making use of the McDonald’s mobile order-ahead and contactless pay options. Those options, as with many competitors’, have become largely more popular in the past year as the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the economy to one based on digital contactless ordering.

Leandro Balbinot, senior vice president of technology and product engineering and data at McDonald’s, said customers have made it clear they want to utilize cell phones to make McDonalds’ purchases and schedule pickups.

“With the use of Sift’s technology, McDonald’s will continue to expand our mobile ordering channel around the world and keep our customers satisfied.”

Fraud has become prevalent during the pandemic as scammers have pounced on new opportunities of confusion while the world scrambled to respond to the pandemic. PYMNTS, quoting Sift, reports that the scammers have also modified how they operate in order to keep up with the current events. Illicit actors have moved away from the “spray and pray” style and into a new style that targets fewer victims but elicits larger profits.

Sift says cybercriminals have been working on larger eCommerce retailers where they believe they’ll be likely to get through without issue, as rules-based systems often fail to detect high-dollar fraud — though they do often catch legitimate transactions by accident.