LexisNexis® ThreatMetrix® was named Gold Winner for Ecommerce Fraud Prevention at the Juniper Research Fintech & Payments Future Digital Awards 2026.

We sat down with Maanas Godugunur, Senior Director, Fraud and Identity at LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, to discuss why ecommerce fraud prevention needs to begin before checkout. Nick Maynard, VP of Research at Juniper Research, also explains what sets ThreatMetrix apart.

Read the full transcript here: 

Nick Maynard, VP of Research at Juniper Research

We identified LexisNexis® Risk Solutions as a leader in the fraud prevention space for a number of reasons. Fundamentally, LexisNexis® Risk Solutions has a very broad portfolio. ThreatMetrix was the particular one we awarded with this accolade. I think what sets them apart is their innovation as well, their dedication to getting the best value out of AI systems and really making sure that their solutions are future-proofed, as well as really looking beyond the moment that payment is initiated, looking at who's accessing a system. Is it the same person who accessed the system last time? Is the location the same? I think that level of sort of active indicators and passive indicators is something that they've sort of threaded through their systems very effectively and really serves to demonstrate how powerful LexisNexis® Risk Solutions can be in fraud prevention. On that basis, awarding them with the Gold Award for e-commerce fraud prevention in the 2026 FinTech and Payments Future Digital Awards was an easy decision.

Maanas Godugunur, Senior Director, Fraud and Identity at LexisNexis® Risk Solutions

Traditionally, as you are aware, e-commerce merchants were primarily, you know, engaged or adding most of their fraud risk controls at checkout, because that's where the final transaction is being made. I need to make sure it's not going to lead to a chargeback, it's not going to lead to fraud. But what was getting missed out on was NAO, or a promotion abuse or also, you know, an account takeover issue, like you may have the ability to figure out whether it's coming from, you know, payment is being made. Yes, it's the same shipping address or maybe it's a different shipping address that you didn't realise the phone number is different or something else has changed in this. And what happened prior to this transaction becomes very important for you to understand as to who truly has logged in to this account?

The point is you have this big challenge of trusting your customer, improving customer loyalty, engaging in customer trust, but also identifying when someone is actually, who is actually executing that transaction. That only comes when you have a complete view of the journey from NAO, through logins, through account change, and then payments. All this needs to be stitched together, and that's what we are aiming to do with LexisNexis® ThreatMetrix®, to make it easier for customers to understand what happened in the past for them to be able to make a better decision at payments.

Maanas Godugunur

We obviously have the traditional forms of fraud that our organisations have always been concerned about. I think now with AI and agentic commerce that has come into play, organisations are now faced with this challenge of how do I enable this channel securely and effectively. And also, how do I expand my ability to understand who's actually behind the transaction? So my traditional forms of fraud still remain, continue to remain. I just need to make sure that I am not exacerbating an existing problem by exposing or creating a new channel into agent e-commerce. That's one big thing. 

The other aspect is how do I address deep fakes? How do I address, you know, the challenges of somebody who's actually impersonating and taking over an account? These are all very important because more and more customers and merchants are introducing loyalty programs. What we, what merchants need to start addressing is how do I protect that loyalty program, right? How do I protect the points? Because you're trying to increase customer loyalty and trust. Trust becomes very important because if I lose all my points that I've gained, then I'll be like, hey, I worked so hard to gain these points and now where is all that? So, there are so many things happening in the e-commerce space to engage with the customer, to increase loyalty, but with every touch point, with every program that is introduced, your fraud vectors and your fraud exposure actually increases. So, how do you address that effectively with a platform that is flexible enough, that helps you bring various risk signals together, help you have an effective policy or an event? Like those are the type of challenges that the customer or merchants are facing.

Maanas Godugunur

What we are doing is we are adopting responsible AI principles so that when we are pushing something that is predictive AI. So, our traditional machine learning capabilities or any generative AI capabilities to explain a rule or explain an event, it is grounded on our responsible AI principles, which is can I truly help explain why this decision was made or why this was created, right? It's all about understandability. It's about recreating it, traceability. So, we have this trust framework that we built around, right? Transparency, understandability, traceability.

So, this helps us actually push out technology and effective solutions for our customers to make, to be very comfortable with what decisions have been provided to them. 

Fraud is considered as, you know, in general, it has a negative tone to it, right? Fraud, but investing in the right fraud experiences is what I would call it, or fraud investigation capabilities will actually enhance your ability to convert more customers increase more sales and add more to your bottom line from a merchant standpoint. So don't think of it as a hindrance, but actually as an enabler for you to do better business.

 
Find out more about LexisNexis® ThreatMetrix®: https://risk.lexisnexis.com/products/threatmetrix