The global e-commerce market is expected to exceed US$7 trillion in 2024 from under US$1 trillion in 2010. This sharp growth is due to consumers shifting to online channels amid the COVID-19 pandemic; however, this may cause an increase of fraud, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Sam Murrant, Lead Payments Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “We are seeing very rapid growth, particularly on online mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, which accounts for the majority of growth in GlobalData’s forecasts. COVID-19 has seen a lot of consumer purchasing behaviour move towards e-commerce due to necessity, with isolation and shops being closed. We do not expect to see a major spike in 2020, just continued strong growth, because of economic uncertainty and overall payments slowing down. However, consumers will continue with these behaviours beyond 2020.”

This shift from traditional card based tools to newer alternative tools, in a variety of different forms in different markets, means that the market is fracturing, as a lot of the new tools are domestic in scope.

Murrant continues: “The key challenge going forward is that fraud is on the rise. While fraud was already increasing, it is now surging due to COVID-19. This is partly due to fraudsters using COVID-19 specific scams, and consumers being more restricted and more likely to be using the online channel, making them more vulnerable to email phishing schemes.”