Real-Time Payments Boom as E-Commerce Fraud Rates Finally Show Decline

The report, based on a survey of more than 1,080 merchants across 38 countries, finds that 37 per cent of merchants now accept real-time payments, and momentum is accelerating.

Among those already offering RTP, nearly 80 per cent reported a noticeable rise in customer usage over the past year, while almost 90 per cent expect further growth in 2025.

Even among merchants that do not yet accept RTP, 42 per cent say they are likely to add it within the next 12 months, positioning real-time payments as one of the fastest-growing acceptance methods globally.

Despite growing transaction volumes, merchants are reporting an improvement in overall fraud outcomes.

Fraud rates by order declined from 3.4 per cent to 3.0 per cent year over year, while order rejection rates fell significantly from 5.8 per cent to 5.0 per cent, reversing a multi-year upward trend.

Still, fraud remains nearly universal, with 98 per cent of merchants experiencing at least one type of fraud in the past year.

The most common threats include refund and policy abuse (47 per cent), real-time payment fraud (45 per cent), phishing attacks (42 per cent), first-party misuse (39 per cent), and card testing (32 per cent).

Although first-party misuse continues to affect a majority of merchants, its growth is slowing.

While 62 per cent reported some increase, the share experiencing sharp spikes of 25 per cent or more dropped to 24 per cent, down from 31 per cent the previous year.

Merchants are responding by leaning heavily into technology. More than half (56 per cent) now use generative AI tools for fraud management, up sharply from 42 per cent last year, and adoption is expected to reach nearly 80 per cent by the end of 2025.

Overall, 63 per cent of merchants plan to increase spending on fraud tools and technologies, compared with just 49 per cent planning to increase staff investment, underscoring a shift toward automation and AI-driven risk management.

Payment optimization remains a top priority alongside fraud control. Merchants identified revenue, authorization rate, payment success rate, fraud and chargeback losses, authentication rate, and cost of payments as the six most critical performance metrics. To improve outcomes, six in ten merchants now use tokenization, primarily to reduce data-breach risk and boost authorization rates.

- ANI