UK retail trade group extends address verification pilot

The Interactive Retail in Media Group, a London-based trade association of online retailers, is extending a trial of a retailer-created address verification database until February, Mike Jones, director of strategic alliances in Europe/Middle East/Africa for CyberSource Corp., the IRMG’s technology partner, tells InternetRetailer.com.

The database of delivery addresses with which retailers have had fraud problems has been available for six months but has little use so far because retailers have struggled with integrating the database information with their legacy systems and because retailers’ legal departments have needed reassurance that the database meets European privacy standards, Jones says. “Merchants like the concept because this is an address verification system that is run by merchants for merchants,” Jones says. “But to integrate it with legacy systems is non-trivial.”

The goal of the extended test will be to encourage large retailers who ship to many addresses to test the information and see if it prevents fraud. The IRMG hopes that a large number of merchants will contribute addresses as the pilot proceeds. The plan is for retailers to run all addresses for orders through the database to find potentially fraudulent addresses.

Pricing of the service has not been established yet, Jones says. The pilot has proceeded with flat quarterly pricing, but Jones says the pricing will probably be per transaction once the database is rolled out. The address information from retailers is housed in CyberSource databases in the U.S.

If the trial succeeds, Jones says, the IMRG would like to make the information available to U.S. retailers.