Consumer trust in payments: why security now beats convenience

Ask a shopper why they choose to switch payment methods, and you might expect the answer to be speed, rewards, or a smoother checkout experience - but it isn't.

According to The Payments Association's Consumer Behaviour 2026 Report, 39% of UK consumers say better security is the number one reason they'd switch, ahead of convenience, loyalty rewards, and brand familiarity combined.

This figure increases for higher-value transactions. For purchases over £250, 55% of UK consumers prioritise security over convenience (32%), cost (32%), and rewards (25%). The bigger the spend, the more security matters.

The research demonstrates that for merchants and payment service providers (PSPs), providing payment methods that consumers can trust is paramount.

For years, fraud prevention has been seen as something that, while necessary, is rarely discussed outside the risk team. The data suggests that's no longer the right approach.

When over half of consumers choose security first on their biggest purchases, how a business protects a transaction becomes a significant factor in how it wins that transaction.

That changes what merchants should ask when they choose a payments partner. Fraud prevention isn't just a shield against losses anymore; it's a conversion factor in customer trust, and in whether a shopper comes back for the next purchase. A PSP that treats security as a growth lever, not a compliance checkbox, gives its merchants an edge that shows up directly in the numbers.

It's tempting to treat fraud as a rare, distant risk, but the numbers say otherwise. The same research also found that 20% of UK consumers experienced at least one type of fraud in the past 12 months.

Fraud also isn't evenly spread. London's fraud rate is double the national average, a concentration that tracks where transaction volumes and money flows are highest.

As Brad Elliott, CEO of RelyComply, puts it: "London's rate, double the average, shows that fraud concentrates where the money moves, not where the victims live. The answer shouldn't be more friction at checkout for honest customers; it's getting identity and behaviour right at the account level."

Ecommpay’s graph analysis module maps the relationships between linked payment credentials and entities, surfacing fraud rings and suspicious patterns before they act. It combines machine learning, behavioural analytics, a flexible rule engine, and restricted-lists functionality, backed by manual review from our expert risk analysts when required.

In practice, that adds up to a 97% fraud detection and prevention rate, achieved without adding friction for legitimate customers. Our graph analysis module has helped us detect twice as many suspicious accounts. The approach has been recognised externally too, winning ‘Fraud Prevention of the Year’ at the Retail Systems Awards 2025 and ‘Excellence in Finance – Technology Innovation’ at the FiNext Awards 2025.

Security also runs deeper than detection. Our open banking solutions move money directly from account to account with no card involved, removing chargeback risk entirely. They use strong customer authentication (SCA), cover more than 80% of banks across the UK and Europe, and convert at an average rate of 80%.

For card payments, we use advanced tokenization, so a customer's actual card details are never exposed during a transaction. That reduces fraud and data-breach risk and makes PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliance considerably easier to manage.

Pavels Smirnovs, Head of Fraud Risk Division at Ecommpay, sums up the thinking behind it: "Our graph analysis module lets us spot the connections between fraudulent accounts that a rules-based engine alone would miss, and our open banking and tokenization solutions mean merchants can offer secure, low-friction ways to pay across cards and APMs alike. Security shouldn't be something customers have to fight through. Done well, it's invisible to them - and invaluable to the businesses we work with."

Vijay Ray, Associate Director at RSM UK Consulting, frames the stakes plainly: "Security outranks everything else: rewards, convenience, even familiarity. The payments community must ensure that trust is not assumed. It needs to be demonstrated, communicated, and continuously earned."

For merchants evaluating a payments partner, that means asking harder questions than "how fast is the checkout?" Ask how fraud is detected, not just reported after the fact. Ask whether security measures add friction for genuine customers or work quietly in the background. Ask whether the answer covers cards and Alternative Payment Methods alike, because your customers won't all pay the same way.

Trust isn't a feature you bolt on. It's built transaction by transaction, and it shows up in whether a customer completes a purchase or abandons it at the last screen. Security, done well, isn't the cost of doing business. It's how you grow your business.

Read more on how the payments ecosystem needs to evolve to meet this challenge in our white paper, Beyond the Black Box, or get in touch with our team to talk through what a security-first payments partner could look like for your business.