Listen to this article
Below is our recent interview with Eduardo Monaco, Chief Executive Officer at ClearSale:
Q: Can you please introduce yourself and your company?
A: I graduated with a degree in Statistics at the State University of Campinas, with an MBA in Business Management at FIA Business School. I then worked for about 10 years in some of the largest Brazilian retail companies, including C&A, Pão de Açúcar and Riachuelo.
With experience as Product, Marketing and Analytics Executive Director at Minuto Seguros, a digital startup known as one of the biggest insurtechs in Brazil, I assisted in the company’s accelerated growth process by actively participating in strategic decisions. I was also the Sales and Marketing Director at Dafiti, where I oversaw the Sales of Performance Marketing investments.
One of my passions is educating others which led me to pursue teaching MBA and graduate courses at FIA on topics related to Data Analysis, Statistics, Business Intelligence, Big Data and ROI Marketing. I describe myself as a lover of agility and believe that implementing processes that can keep pace with a fast-changing world is the linchpin of success for a company. This allows teams to become multidisciplinary, trusting in their journeys with a greater focus on the results.
I started working with ClearSale about four years ago as COO and have recently been promoted to CEO of the company with responsibilities including managing Operations, Analytics IT, Products, Open Innovation, Customer Success and Data teams. ClearSale is a leading global fraud protection solution for businesses of all sizes. With our cutting-edge technology that combines ML, AI and extensive expertise in fraud prevention in some of the riskiest markets, we help online retailers across various industries build trust with their customers and minimize the risks associated with ecommerce fraud.
Q: What are ClearSale’s main goals and mission in ecommerce fraud prevention?
A: Our primary mission is to help online retailers do what they do best: safely sell their products and services without the fear of fraud. Our advanced fraud detection technology and sophisticated ML and AI algorithms allow our team to analyze vast amounts of data and accurately identify fraudulent activities while minimizing false positives, ensuring a frictionless and secure shopping experience for genuine customers. The company’s purpose is to generate a simpler, safer and fairer digital life for everyone online.
With a strong track record for 20+ years in the ecommerce industry, a client base of over 6,000 businesses in more than 160 countries, ClearSale has become a trusted partner for businesses across various online sectors, including retail, travel, digital goods, and more.
Q: What are some of the most prevalent fraud schemes that online retailers need to look out for?
A: As new technologies continue to develop, fraudsters leverage retailers’ weak points to infiltrate their systems. ATO fraud, phishing, and card testing have become especially threatening toward retailers and their brands in recent years. As generative AI is making cybercriminals’ jobs even easier to execute, watching out for common red flags may no longer be enough to keep these fraud schemes at bay. For example, phishing schemes have become more challenging to detect as criminals use generative AI to clone voices, create malicious emails, and use images from social media in fraudulent branding.
Another common trend we’re seeing is a rise in friendly fraud. During any economic period where consumer budgets shrink, customers regularly scrutinize their purchases more aggressively. This leads to marked increases in transaction disputes, chargebacks, and fraud as consumers are looking for easy ways to limit spending. These chargebacks can not only damage a retailer’s bottom line (losing the product or service plus the fees associated with the chargeback) but can also have a major effect on its reputation, even to the point of having its merchant account suspended and being considered “high-risk”.
Q: What new products have you launched since becoming CEO?
A: We recently created a new platform, Brand Protection by ClearSale, which uses AI and digital intelligence to continuously scan for and report brand impersonation attacks such as fake social profiles, ads, and websites; counterfeit products; and phishing attacks.
Because it’s so easy for scammers to create fake accounts on social, email, and marketplace platforms, impersonation is a vast and unending challenge for many high-profile retailers and brands and has already created losses of more than $6 billion over the past five years. One of clients using the brand protection platform was able to detect more than 2,200 impostor social media profiles and had 99.9% of them taken down within 24 hours, which is a huge relief to the brand suffering from this kind of fraud. We plan to continue this success by assisting more brands in their efforts to fight brand impersonation.
We are also developing in other avenues of growth and innovation in the financial sector, especially in markets like Brazil, Latin America, and North America. These markets are hotbeds for disruption and opportunity–like in the credit granting market in Brazil, for example–and we are acutely attune to fostering these kinds of advancements.
Q: What do you want to accomplish as ClearSale’s new CEO?
A: In this next stage of ClearSale’s evolution, I’m planning on leading with a focus on nurturing innovation, risk mapping, and leveraging opportunities. The ecommerce world has changed dramatically in recent years, and it’s not slowing down anytime soon. Between mobile payment options, BNPL alternatives, global selling and more, the possibilities for fraudsters to negatively affect a company’s finances and reputation are endless.
Staying up-to-date on these new innovations and staying ahead of fraud will keep our clients safe and their customers coming back for more. Our team has always been dedicated to our mission, and I look forward to pushing the boundaries to better aid our clients in their fraud prevention pursuits. We are all about growth, movement, progression forward. Now is the greatest time to put that passion into practice.
Q: Who is your ideal client and why?
A: At ClearSale, we work with businesses of every size, in every industry, everywhere around the world; however, we do specialize in ecommerce retail brands, digital goods and service providers, high-risk industries including luxury goods, electronics and high-value products, and international retailers.
We love working with retailers across the globe and in many different sectors, and believe that every retailer deserves to have the most advanced safeguarding of its products, services, and customers from fraudulent threats. Whether you identify as an enterprise or an SMB, ClearSale has the right services to satisfy your specific needs.
Q: How does ClearSale’s solution differ from other fraud prevention providers?
A: Unlike our competitors who regularly search for red flags to decline payments, often resulting in false declines, our team actively searches for reasons to approve payments. Ecommerce fraud and chargebacks can quickly chip away at a merchant’s bottom line, but false declines can turn legitimate customers away. This is why ClearSale focuses on both chargebacks and false declines in our fraud prevention strategies.
ClearSale combines sophisticated AI. technology and an advanced proprietary secondary review process to help maximize a business’s revenue, approve as many valid orders as possible, and keep customers happy. Our team continues to have the highest approval rate and lowest turnover rate in the industry, and puts in every effort to prevent fraud-related attacks.
Activate Social Media:
