Payments by the numbers

Following are research highlights from recently released payments industry reports.

Prolexic report finds FIs under DDoS onslought

Internet security firm Prolexic Technologies said Distributed Denial of Service attacks against financial institutions (FIs) increased almost threefold in the first quarter of 2012. Prolexic also reported a 3,000 percent increase in malicious packet traffic.

During fourth quarter 2011, over 168 trillion bits of data and 14 billion packets of malicious traffic targeted Prolexic's FI clients. Those numbers skyrocketed to 5.7 quadrillion bits of data and 1.1 trillion malicious packets in first quarter 2012. "We expect other verticals beyond financial services, gaming and gambling, to be on the receiving end of these massive attack volumes as the year progresses," said Neal Quinn, Vice President of Operations at Prolexic.

The Prolexic Quarterly Attack Report for Q1 2012 is available for download at www.prolexic.com/attackreports .

Temkin measures customer experience

A research report published by U.K.-based consultancy Temkin Group said large U.S. and U.K. businesses could each generate hundreds of millions of dollars in profits in the next three years by "making a modest improvement in the customer experience they deliver."

According to The ROI of Customer Experience, companies that emphasize customer experience gain at least a 16 percent advantage over less customer-friendly companies, with the former group enjoying the benefits of greater customer loyalty: increased revenues, more word of mouth advertising and decreased customer attrition.

"Our research quantifies what many people intuitively understand: customers are more loyal to companies that treat them well," said Bruce Temkin, author of the report and Managing Partner of Temkin Group.

The report is based on a survey of 272 fast food chains, retailers and supermarket chains in the U.S. and U.K., representing 18 industries.

ExactTarget says email marketing still works

Multimedia marketer ExactTarget conducted a study that found two-thirds of U.S. consumers who purchase online made such purchases as a result of email messages, nearly twice the percentage who bought goods and services online after receiving marketing messages delivered via Facebook and text messages.

The study, entitled the 2012 Channel Preference Survey, said 77 percent of 1,481 consumers surveyed prefer to receive marketing messages via email, compared to five percent who prefer social media.

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