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EMV drives down skimming in Europe, but drives up ATM physical attacks

April 10, 2014

If criminals can't get at ATM cash one way, they'll generally come up with another way. Which raises the question: following migration to chip cards, will the U.S. see the same rise in explosive attacks on ATMs that Europe is seeing now?

From 2012 to 2013, Europe experienced a 9 percent increase (from 1,920 to 2,102) in ATM-related physical attacks, according to a new report by the European ATM Security Team. This increase was driven by a 31 percent increase in reported solid explosive and explosive gas attacks, and was the fifth successive annual increase — from 117 in 2008 to 696 in 2013.

Losses due to ATM-related physical attacks rose 21 percent from €19 million to €23 million ($26 million to $32 million). The average cash loss increased from €9,705 to €11,393 ($13,473 to $15,816) per incident.

Even though an average of 40 percent of such attacks do not result in cash loss, collateral damage to equipment and buildings can be significant.

Within the same time frame, card trapping incidents increased 98 percent (from 2,726 to 5,394 in 2013).

EAST reported a 5 percent decrease in ATM-related fraud, with card-skimming incidents down by 19 percent — from 7,184 in 2012 to 5,822 in 2013.

Skimming has declined in each of the last three years, and is down 45 percent from a high of 10,497 incidents in 2008.

Losses due to ATM-related fraud attacks fell 7 percent — from €265 million to €248 million ($368 million to $344 million), and nearly 50 percent below the high of €485 million ($673 million) reported in 2008.

The majority of losses continue to arise from card-skimming attacks; and the majority (83 percent) of skimming losses continue to occur outside of Europe. Such losses decreased by 9 percent compared with 2012 and are mainly now occurring in the United States, Latin America and Asia-Pacific.