Recent research by gini, shows 66.7% of respondents feel their bank should be doing more to improve online services during the pandemic, with one of the major pain points being the lack of clarity in the way information is displayed on transaction histories. gini describes itself as a data enrichment fintech.

The survey showed that 81.7% of respondents have seen transactions they don’t recognise on their statements, and the majority used the words, “worried”, “annoyed” and “frustrated” to describe how this problem makes them feel.

While the problem of unrecognised transactions is not a new one, the compounded effect of an unprecedented surge in card-not-present transactions during the pandemic and the resulting increased exposure for digital payments fraud, plus new levels of economic uncertainty, has made consumers more careful about tracking their spending in general.

In gini’s survey, 23.3% of respondents said the increase in online payments this year has made them more worried about fraud, while 53% said they were “always worried about fraud” even before the pandemic.

100% of respondents said they “want the banking app to show the actual shop name for each transaction.”

In addition to the frustration, unrecognised transactions present a practical problem, too. Most respondents (71.7%) have called or visited a bank branch to get more information on a transaction this year, and the reported time taken to resolve the issue varied from “10 minutes” to “3 months” to “It still hasn’t been resolved.”

For those who raised a transaction query with their bank, 19% said the bank was unable to help, while 25% said they got their money back after the bank launched a chargeback investigation.

According to gini, the problem of unrecognised transactions is costing financial institutions millions of dollars each in customer support and chargeback and fraud investigations every year. Globally, chargebacks are expected to cost financial institutions US$16.4 billion this year alone.

Ray Wyand, CEO of gini, noted that is something that banks put up with because they are not aware that is preventable, he further added that banks in other countries have invested in better online experience by showing actual merchants names, and that there’s no reason the same can’t be done in Hong Kong.

He further shared that, transactions queries were reduced by up to 60% and chargeback costs by up to 40% in those instances.

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