The Smart Card Alliance contends in a white paper that the current weakest link for card fraud is the magnetic stripe payments infrastructure, which, as other countries implement EMV-compliant chip cards and infrastructure, is increasingly being attacked in the U.S. Moreover, contactless payments, as currently implemented in the U.S., help reduce card-based fraud.
John Leyden at The Register reports that UK online banking fraud losses rose 55 per cent to hit £39m for the first half of 2009. However, overall card fraud losses fell 23 per cent from £304.2m in 1H2008 to £232.8m in the first half of 2009. Moreover, CNP fraud in the UK shrank for first time. Fraud Action UK credits the decline in plastic fraud to the introduction of Chip and PIN making life more difficult for fraudsters to counterfeit cards and enforcement efforts by the banking industry-funded Dedicated Cheque and Plastic Crime Unit (DCPCU). Increasing use of “sophisticated fraud screening detection tools by retailers and banks, as well as the continuing growth in the use of MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa” are credited with reducing customer not present fraud.
Australia’s Ninemsn reports a surge in credit card fraud at ATMs and EFTPOS facilities has seen Australians fleeced of tens of millions of dollars in recent months. A leading fraud expert says Australia’s outdated and insecure banking technology has made the country the target of Romanian credit card skimmers with increasingly sophisticated equipment.
Rick Wilson at Practical eCommerce says a Velocity Hack is when someone with stolen credit cards decides to use your online storefront to test multiple cards to see if they’re good, and can therefore resell them on the black market or use them for fraudulent purchases elsewhere.
Since 2005, the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) has examined the nature and frequency of fraudulent attacks on business-to-business payments as well as the industry fraud-risk tools that organizations use to control payments fraud. The results of the 2009 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey show that payments fraud is rampant: a majority of organizations experienced attempted or actual payments fraud in 2008.
Author and consultant, Peter Lynch compares card fraud losses and types in the Spanish, French, British and Dutch markets and suggests that fraud losses are being contained as a proportion of card sales. Nevertheless, he contends there is no room for complacency.
PaymentsNews reports on a survey conducted by Adeptra that found “the majority of US consumers want their credit card issuer to call them on their cell phones to alert them of possible suspicious transactions. When asked if they had more faith in their card issuers’ abilities to prevent fraud or resolve fraud should it happen to them, consumers favored slightly towards the ability to prevent fraud, with 6% stating they had a greater confidence in fraud prevention over fraud resolution.”
