Risk Management & Fraud Prevention in Payments: On Focus Interview with Georgi Trichkov, Risk & Monitoring Analyst, CatalystPay

In the third installment of our On Focus series, we present you Georgi Trichkov, Risk Analyst at CatalystPay. In this interview, Georgi shares his unique insights into the role of a Risk & Monitoring Analyst in the payment industry, the importance of risk monitoring, and how to protect online merchants from fraudulent activities. He explains the common types of fraud in the payment industry and offers practical tips for merchants to prevent fraud. Read on to learn from an experienced Risk & Monitoring Analyst and gain a deeper understanding of the significance of risk monitoring in the payment industry.

Can you please briefly introduce yourself?

My name is Georgi Trichkov and I`ve been involved in the Risk Management operations here at CatalystPay as a Risk Analyst since November, 2021. The way things have happened to me in my life so far is quite unusual and this gave me the chance to try and experience a lot - both professionally and personally. In fact, I graduated from Law school in 2013 but never had the desire to go further and grow into this field. Instead, I started working for one of the largest Payment Service Providers and managed to learn a lot for a quite short period of time. And this is how my journey in the Risk Management field started and still continues.

If I have to highlight the things that make me happy in life - I would definitely start with travelling and then will have to continue with sports (football, tennis, swimming, skiing..). I also love to cook for my friends and family but in general - never been a fan of indoor activities and that is why I'm super excited that summer is getting closer and closer as we speak ????

Why did you decide to join the CatalystPay team?

Over the last couple of years I had the chance to travel a lot and live in different places. I spent over 6 years in the United States before I finally returned back to Bulgaria in 2021. 

I`ve had the chance to have a wonderful and very colourful experience overseas and also - I was lucky enough to meet incredible people along the way which I will always be grateful for.

However, I have learned from experience that being successful in what you do is not always enough and not always the ultimate recipe for happiness.

I also learned to value the importance of having the closest people around yourself - family and friends…

And if, at any point of your life, you have the chance to stay close to your family and at the same time - work with your friends - Grab it! This is priceless! It is why I consider myself lucky to be back and to be part of the CatalystPay Team. It means “Being Home” for me in every possible aspect!

What does the role of Risk & Monitoring Analyst mean in the payment industry and why is it important?

Simply said - Risk Monitoring allows companies to get familiar with all types of risks that affect their payments. Knowing the potential threats is always crucial for everyone in order to create risk mitigation strategies. 

And this is basically the role of every Risk & Monitoring Analyst - to investigate and to closely observe and be familiar with the potential risks related to every single client`s payments. Analysing merchant`s traffic and proactively looking for solutions helps defining clear steps to risk mitigation and most importantly - creates transparency, which inspires trust in every client.

As a Risk & Monitoring Analyst, how do you help online merchants to protect themselves against fraudulent activities and what measures do you recommend they take to minimise their risk?

Generally speaking, the Fraud monitoring process includes different steps that are performed by the Risk & Monitoring Analyst on a daily basis:

 

• Monitoring and reviewing the overall traffic and in all fraud-related transactions in particular;

• Identifying the main contributors and the origin of the fraud-reported payments. 

• Assessing the risk and analysing the potential threat for each merchant.

• Treating the Fraud - taking every possible measure to minimise the potential risk by communicating the situation with the merchant and setting certain limitations if needed in order to avoid the fraud-related traffic.

 

By analysing each and every payment, the Risk analysts are looking for certain patterns that could lead them to the origin of the fraudulent activity. We can detect certain countries, Issuer Banks, credit cards, email addresses, IP addresses, etc. that are on the bottom of a negative trend for the merchant. In order to find the best solution, we communicate our findings internally and then - with the merchants  and determine the best way to cope with the situation.

Can you share some of the most common types of fraud you have seen in the payment industry, and what steps can online merchants take to prevent them?

Online payments are definitely the most popular way of purchasing goods and services in the world. This increases the overall traffic in general and is also the reason for a constant increase in the fraud-reported transactions.

In my experience - there are 2 most common types of Fraud that merchants are facing:

 

• Identity Theft: This is a common situation in the payment industry where an individual steals someone else's payment information and uses it to initiate an unauthorised purchase. When the actual cardholder/account owner notices that their account has been abused - they report the transaction as fraudulent.

• “Friendly Fraud” is a term that stands for the situation where a customer falsely claims that they never received a good or service in order to get their money back. In this scenario the fraudster is basically abusing the online payment system by taking advantage of the received product/service and at the same time - receiving their money back.

 

Luckily, there are multiple ways to prevent merchant`s accounts from the above-mentioned fraud activities. Some of the most effective ones are the following:

• Daily transaction monitoring - this would help to proactively restrict the negative impact of the fraud activity and prevent all merchants from further escalation of the certain negative trend.

• We advise merchants to use strong authentication systems and procedures that would prevent easy access to payment or any financial information.
• We also advise all merchants to encrypt important documentation and emails which would limit the options for data manipulation that could be used for unethical purposes.

Banks and merchants are implementing various fraud prevention tools in order to minimise the risk and improve their Fraud-To-Sale ratios.

However, sometimes this has its downsides. In some cases applying overly aggressive fraud rules along the payment flow can result in a high number of unwanted declines where the transaction was in fact legitimate. This can cause significant financial losses for the merchants and also - loss of valued customers.

In my experience, these false declines are often coming from the end-user`s Issuer Banks.

In order to decrease the number of blocked legitimate transactions merchants can apply internal checks at every step in the transaction flow. As soon as there is an issue detected -  they should put all efforts into proactively communicating the case with the banks and their customers.

What advice would you give to online merchants who are just starting to implement fraud prevention measures in their payment systems?

It is very important for every merchant to keep up to speed with the newest types of fraud. Fraudsters are always finding new and lucrative ways of obtaining private information. With that being said - it would definitely help the merchants to carefully analyse their transaction flow and their customer`s profile before implementing the right fraud prevention tools. 

In my opinion employee training and education is also crucial for the merchants. In order to get the best results from all the implemented fraud mitigation systems, merchants should provide their staff with regular training to ensure that awareness of the company's anti-fraud measures remains high.

We should all remember that the only way to eliminate the Fraud entirely is to stop accepting payments. What we can do is minimise its effect over our businesses. It is a matter of daily efforts and teamwork.

 

Check out the rest of the On Focus interviews with our team or check our team page to get to know us better:

• Common issues that online merchants face with online Payments - Interview with Head of Sales, CatalystPay
• The importance of Compliance in Payments - Interview with Chief Compliance Officer, CatalystPay