Half of Bulgarian Consumers Have Growing Concerns about Internet Fraud

Jerusalem, 5 September, 2022 (TPS) -- SOFIA, 05.09.2022 (BTA)
Half of Bulgarian consumers are more afraid of falling victim to Internet fraud now than they were in 2021, according to an international survey conducted by Sapio Research, which was unveiled in this country on Monday. The survey shows that safety and convenience are equally important to Bulgarians when it comes to online purchases, while at the same time the high cost of living continues to fuel their financial worries.

Some 63% of Bulgarian respondents believe that financial fraud is an unavoidable risk when shopping on the Internet. This makes 55% of Bulgarian interviewees uncomfortable about providing financial information about themselves when shopping online.

The payments industry has been trying for years to strike a balance between safety and convenience in order to satisfy consumers and give them the best possible experience. Nonetheless, growing concerns about fraud keep safety a burning issue. Bulgarian consumers tend to look for the golden means, but they would give precedence to safety over convenience (21%) in online shopping.

Although security experts often point to the limitations of using a password for protection, most consumers accept passwords as a familiar safety tool, the pollsters comment. Forty-seven percent of those polled in this country say they trust passwords more than biometric identification when making payments online. But consumer confidence in biometric identification is growing too, with 57% of Bulgarians agreeing that biometric technology makes online payments safer.

Whatever apprehensions they may have, most consumers in Bulgaria (53%) believe that Internet payments are safer now than a year ago.

The survey was commissioned by multinational online payments company Paysafe and conducted by London-based market researcher Sapio Research in April 2022 among 11,000 consumers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Peru, Chile and Brazil. The Bulgarian respondents numbered 1,000.