The European Central Bank (ECB) today published its first report on card fraud. One of its key findings is that fraud has steadily declined since 2007, and that technological advances have been central to increased transaction security.
The report was compiled by the Eurosystem, which is made up of the ECB and 17 national central banks in the euro area. It analyzes fraud developments related to card payments in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) from 2007 to 2010. SEPA comprises 32 countries — all of the European Union, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway and Switzerland — totalling 458 million citizens in Europe. The report looks at fraud across debit and credit card usage.
Findings from the report include:
- The total level of fraud amounted to €1.26 billion ($1.54 billion) in 2010, a 12.1 percent decrease over 2009. Overall, 1.2 percent of cards issued within SEPA were used fraudulently.
- In 2010, half of the value of fraud resulted from card-not-present payments, while a third resulted from POS terminals and a sixth from ATMs.
- Wider adoption of the EMV chip-based standard is credited for the reduction of POS and ATM fraud from 2007 to 2010.
- As card-not-press transactions do not benefit from these EMV security enhancements, CNP fraud has been on an upward trend both in absolute and relative terms.
- For credit and delayed debit cards, used predominantly in Internet and cross-border transactions, €1 ($1.22) of every €1,010 ($1,237), or around 0.1 percent, was spent in a fraudulent transaction. For debit cards, which are typically used in stores and at ATMs, the proportion was €1 ($1.22) in every €4,545 ($5,567), or 0.02 percent.
The report is available on the ECB’s website.
For more on this topic, visit the EMV research center.
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