This library focuses specifically on card-not-present (CNP) transactions — mail orders, telephone orders, and eCommerce purchases. CyberSource's annual Online Fraud Report put total online fraud losses for U.S. retailers at $2.7 billion in 2010 alone.
What makes a transaction card-not-present
A transaction is CNP whenever the merchant never physically has the card in hand during payment — phone orders, catalog purchases, online shopping. CNP transactions make up less than a third of total credit card purchases each year, but they carry a meaningfully higher fraud rate than card-present transactions do.
Who actually pays for it
In most cases, the merchant absorbs the fraud loss directly — which is exactly why fraud prevention isn't optional overhead, it's a direct line to the bottom line.
What this library is for
The goal is background on payment processes and fraud schemes, paired with prevention techniques built specifically for the CNP space — written for "fraud practitioners," meaning anyone responsible for managing fraud prevention, regardless of what department they came from.
Why this takes a cross-functional team
Effective CNP fraud prevention needs collaboration across customer service, sales, IT, finance, operations, and legal — and it's worth saying directly: techniques built for card-present fraud generally don't translate to the CNP environment. The playbook is genuinely different.