In the world of digital payments friction is kryptonite.  It is the only “substance” that can bring superman to his knees.

Friction is the kryptonite of merchants and retailers, it is one of the most stressful payments related issue that merchants and retailers lose sleep over.  And rightfully so…as it can often mean between a business success or failure.

Many retailers fear that the growth of contactless payments will generate new friction-full transaction process.  The avoidance of cash and the resurgence of tap-and-go payments has generated a wave of concern that consumers will abandon transactions due to slow and tedious authentication.  After all, the goal of authentication is to identify legitimate consumers in real time, with little or no friction, and to flag only those transactions that, based on the financial institution’s risk tolerance, require additional validation.

To validate this concern, a recent report by Paysafe, indicated that 52% of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across the globe operate in fear moving to towards new age authentication methodologies will increase friction.

Recent “Friction” related stats tell it all:

– 46.1% of cart abandonments occur at the payment stage (Business Insider)

– 37.4% of abandonment occurs at checkout login (Internet Retailer)

– 40% of consumers abandon bank applications registration (Significant)

The need for reliable authentication that includes a frictionless customer experience has been one of the main challenges concerning players in the payment ecosystem.  In the past decade, behavioral biometrics has been the de facto standard for consumer identification.  But recent developments in the payment industry have taken authentication (and smooth customer experience) to a new level.  Multi-dimensional authentication methodologies such as Paygilant’s contextual multi-dimensional authentication (CMA) are changing the gamut.

Paygilant’s CMA solution combines Behavioral Biometrics + Device Analytics + Transaction Based Data to generate the most comprehensive, accurate on mobile risk-score available.  Based on machine learning and smart rules, Paygilant makes mobile payments safer, faster and easier.  Using a disruptive technology that is designed to protect mobile payments (executed by NFC, QR code or online) from mobile fraud, Paygilant operates in a hybrid mode on the mobile device and back-end server, enabling a true frictionless customer experience.