News

Financial pros have faith in EMV

New research indicates a high level of confidence in EMV technology as a weapon in the fight against credit and debit card fraud.

March 31, 2015

According to the "2015 AFP Payments Fraud & Control Survey" underwritten by J.P. Morgan and produced by the Association for Financial Professionals, 92 percent of finance professionals firmly believe that EMV cards will be effective in reducing point-of-sale fraud.

In addition, 61 percent believe that chip-and-PIN would be the most effective authentication method for mitigating credit and debit card payments fraud.

"The [s]urvey should serve as a call to action for card vendors," said Jim Kaitz, president and CEO of AFP. "Financial professionals clearly prefer chip-and-PIN over chip-and-signature in the fight against fraud, and they overwhelmingly believe in EMV."

Despite companies' fears, 70 percent of those that were subject to payments fraud in 2014 did not suffer a financial loss from the attack, the survey found. Although declining, checks are by far the payment method most subjected to actual or attempted fraud, and they accounted for the largest dollar amount of loss.

Among the key findings:

• 62 percent of companies were targets of payments fraud in 2014, a 2 percent increase from 2013;
• the most targeted payment methods in 2014 were: checks (77 percent); and credit and debit cards (34 percent); and wires (27 percent); and
• checks continue to account for the largest dollar amount of loss due to payments fraud.

The AFP Payments Fraud & Control Survey, conducted in January 2015, is based on 741 responses from corporate treasury and finance professionals and is now in its 11th year.

A PDF of survey highlights is available online. A copy of the full report is available by email request.