MANILA – A global TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) analysis found that the communities industry – which includes online forums and dating websites – saw the largest percentage (18.0%) of suspected Digital Fraud in the first half of 2024 across evaluated industries when the consumer attempted to transact from the Philippines. The suspected Digital Fraud rate from the Philippines in the communities industry also experienced the largest increase, rising 35% from H1 2023 to H1 2024.
Some of these insights are in the newly released H2 2024 Update to the State of Omnichannel Fraud Report, which explores Digital Fraud trends in H1 2024. TransUnion also determined that the highest suspected Digital Fraud rate from the Philippines in the customer journey against communities in H1 2024 occurred during the financial transaction stage (31% of all digital financial transaction attempts in communities were suspected Digital Fraud), followed by account creation at 22%.
These findings align with global trends pointing to communities as the industry with the highest rate of suspected Digital Fraud (11.5%) in the first half of 2024 – showing an increase of 23% from H1 2023. Communities was the industry with the highest suspected Digital Fraud rate in seven of 19 countries and regions studied in the latest report.
Communities had the highest suspected Digital Fraud rate and Year-over-Year (YoY) rate increase in H1 2024 from the Philippines
| Industry | Philippines suspected Digital Fraud attempt rate
(H1 2024) |
Philippines suspected Digital Fraud attempt rate
% change YoY |
Global suspected Digital Fraud attempt rate (H1 2024) |
Global suspected Digital Fraud attempt rate
% change YoY |
| Communities | 18.0% | 35% | 11.5% | 23% |
| Retail | 12.7% | 0% | 7.3% | -53% |
| Financial Services | 6.6% | -23% | 4.6% | -14% |
| Logistics | 5.7% | -33% | 2.9% | 95% |
| Public Sector | 4.6% | 17% | 1.6% | 21% |
| Travel & Leisure | 0.9% | -47% | 1.0% | -45% |
| Telecommunications | 0.8% | -53% | 2.4% | -54% |
Source: TransUnion TruValidate™
“Digital scams are constantly evolving. The growth of communities also creates more avenues for scammers to potentially defraud consumers,” said Yogesh Daware, chief commercial officer at TransUnion Philippines. “With rising community fraud rates in the Philippines aligning with global findings, there is a need to focus efforts on educating consumers about these types of attacks and disseminating preventive measures that consumers and businesses can take to protect themselves from falling victim.”
Suspected Philippine digital fraud rates remain high
The global rate of suspected Digital Fraud remained stubbornly high in H1 2024 at 5.2% of all attempted transactions. For attempted transactions where the consumer was in the Philippines during that period, the rate of suspected Digital Fraud of 13.0% was much higher than all of the 19 countries and regions TransUnion analyzed, aligning with the trend last year.
Of all the transactions coming from the Philippines, suspected Digital Fraud attempts in H1 2024 were most prevalent at the account login stage of the consumer journey (15.4% of all attempted digital account logins were suspected of Digital Fraud), an increase of 11% compared to H1 2023. This is followed by account creation at 3.7% and respectively transaction at 1.6%. Both stages saw a decrease in suspect Digital Fraud attempts YoY at 8% and 41%,.
Diversification of fraud tactics by fraudsters to scam consumers
These findings align with TransUnion’s Q2 2024 Consumer Pulse Study, in which 70% of Filipinos said that they had been targeted by email, online, phone call, or text messaging fraud in the last three months, with 10% falling victim. Among those who reported being targeted, phishing remains the most common scheme at 51%. Other common methods reported by these targeted consumers include smishing (44%), money and gift card scams (36%), third-party seller scams on legitimate e-commerce sites (31%), vishing (25%), identity theft (23%), money mule (19%) and account takeover (16%). All these highlight the ongoing diversification of fraud tactics across different stages of a customer journey.
“Protecting customers and businesses from fraud is essential to enabling safe and tailored consumer experiences. The latest findings from TransUnion reveal that despite the good-faith efforts by global and local organizations to identify and prevent fraud, fraudsters continue to evolve and it’s vital that fraud prevention methods keep up with the changing times,” added Daware. “Businesses that aren’t already doing so should ensure that they are taking advantage of fraud prevention technologies such as identity verification, IP intelligence, device reputation, and synthetic identity detection as critical components of their fraud prevention programs to stay ahead of evolving threats.”
TransUnion came to its conclusions about digital fraud based on intelligence from its identity and fraud product suite, which helps secure trust across channels and delivers efficient consumer experiences – TransUnion TruValidate. The rate or percentage of suspected Digital Fraud attempts reflect those identified by TransUnion customers as meeting one of the following conditions: 1) denial in real time due to fraudulent indicators, 2) denial in real time for corporate policy violations, 3) fraudulent upon customer investigation, or 4) a corporate policy violation upon customer investigation — compared to all transactions it assessed for fraud.
Download the TransUnion H2 2024 Update to the State of Omnichannel Fraud Report to learn more. Specific country and regional data in the report include Botswana, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Mexico, Namibia, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zambia.
