MSPs Are Walking a Tightrope Between Risk and Conversion
The more friction merchants add to checkout to ensure fraud prevention, the more they risk abandonment. But streamline too far and you’re exposed. This is the tightrope MSPs walk when helping their merchants stay compliant while keeping conversions high.
According to Mastercard’s commissioned study, 77% of consumers value security over speed during online purchases. That number climbs to 79% for financial transactions. But here’s the catch—if security protocols are too strict or too opaque, trust erodes. False declines are especially damaging. Consumers don’t forget when legitimate transactions are blocked due to blanket fraud prevention efforts, and that mistrust spills over onto the merchant and their provider.
Trust Pressures Are Higher in Certain Verticals
If your portfolio includes high-risk verticals—like travel, online gaming, or affiliate marketing—these trust dynamics are magnified. And that makes smart, adaptable security workflows not just beneficial, but essential to retaining merchant accounts and preserving processing volumes.
Consumers Want to Help—but Only if Data Use Feels Safe
There’s a surprising insight from the research: consumers are open to sharing more personal data to support fraud prevention. Nearly 77% are willing to share more when shopping online if it helps prevent fraud. The same is true for 76% interacting with financial institutions.
But don’t mistake willingness for blind trust. Over 80% of consumers still report hesitation about sharing personal data online, especially with mobile apps and digital banks. The burden falls on businesses (especially the MSPs who serve them) to demonstrate secure, responsible use of data at every touchpoint.
Data Transparency Must Be Bidirectional
You’ll need platforms that can support real-time verification without re-authentication. And you’ll need merchant dashboards that support transparency and explain to their customers how and why data is used.
Here’s where the ecosystem breaks down: issuers are sharing more than merchants. The study shows 63% of issuers share data beyond what’s required for all transactions. For merchants, that number drops to 30%.
That’s a problem. Without full merchant-side participation, fraud prevention signals become unreliable, and even advanced AI fraud tools lose their edge. For MSPs, this isn’t just a missed opportunity—it’s a portfolio-wide risk vector. If you’re not enabling your merchants to participate in data-rich ecosystems like Mastercom Collaboration or Visa’s Compelling Evidence 3.0, you’re leaving both money and protection on the table.
A single bad dispute can ripple through an entire merchant account. When issuers share more than merchants, legitimate transactions get flagged—and those flawed disputes become your burden.
Fraud Fallout Isn’t Just Financial
Fraud doesn’t just cost money. It destroys trust. The report found that 92% of consumers who experience fraud will lose trust in a business. Most won’t return. Some will vent online, and many will warn others.
DisputeHelp’s DEFLECT solution exists to stop this exact scenario. By feeding transaction details like shipping data, device IDs, and purchase IP addresses directly into issuer systems, MSPs can prevent these disputes from escalating. No manual effort required.
Friction at Checkout Still Drives Abandonment
It’s not just about stopping fraud. It’s about keeping the customer. The data shows nearly 30% of consumers have abandoned transactions due to excessive steps or delays. Gen Z consumers, in particular, will bail if your checkout isn’t fast, mobile-optimized, and intuitive.
That’s where real-time verification makes a difference. Issuers and merchants alike are working to remove redundant input fields, replace passwords with biometrics, and eliminate “step-up” verification unless risk signals demand it.
MSPs Can Drive Standardization at Scale
MSPs that prioritize risk mitigation through integrated platforms like DisputeHelp’s RESOLVE enable merchants to confidently accept higher-risk transactions. This helps preserve throughput without sacrificing protection, leading to better retention, fewer chargebacks, and more efficient dispute management.
Consumers are clear: they’re willing to be flexible with fraud prevention. But they expect issuers and merchants to meet them halfway—with frictionless verification, safe data practices, and dispute response protocols that work.
MSPs are uniquely positioned to bridge this gap. You can drive adoption of fraud mitigation products at scale, and ensure that data-sharing, verification, and dispute resolution workflows are standardized across your merchant base.
Team Up with DisputeHelp to Deliver Security That Scales
Let’s be honest. Most of your merchants are not fraud experts. But you are. And when you equip them with fully integrated, white-labeled enterprise tools, you don’t just lower their chargeback ratios. You give them a reason to stay.
If you manage merchant portfolios at scale, now is the time to lead the effort toward fraud prevention at scale. With DisputeHelp, you can enable secure, seamless, and smart dispute management across every merchant you serve. From real-time alert resolution to proactive fraud prevention, we’ve built our platform for MSPs who need automation that works and integration that scales. Reach out to our team to explore how we can help you build long-term trust into your portfolio.
Why DisputeHelp?
DisputeHelp offers a full spectrum of white-label solutions for MSPs, covering alerts, dispute resolution, and representment through a single platform. Whether you’re looking to reduce downstream chargeback exposure, automate compliance, or preserve revenue at scale, our platform is purpose-built to protect your merchants—and your margins. With support for all major alert types and a proven approach to data orchestration, we make it easy to scale secure, revenue-saving workflows across your entire portfolio.
