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Payment card fraud trends and stats examined in new report

The Mercator report discusses fraud rates by type, including counterfeit card, lost or stolen card, card ID theft, intercepted mail, and card-not-present.

March 27, 2015

Industry efforts to reduce fraud exposure through payment technologies such as EMV have resulted in sharp declines in certain types of payment fraud. However, changing consumer trends — particularly the growth of card-not-present transactions online — have left the industry somewhat exposed, resulting in card fraud rates that are once again on the rise.

"Global Payment Card Fraud Trends and Statistics," a new report from Mercator Advisory Group, examines global payment card fraud in four countries: the U.K, France, Australia and South Africa.

The report discusses overall fraud rates by type, including counterfeit card, lost or stolen card, card ID theft, intercepted mail, and card-not-present.

"While the future of the payments industry is hard to predict, one certainty is that cybercriminals will continue their attacks on consumers, businesses, and financial institutions via the payment channels available today," said Tristan Hugo-Webb, associate director of the global payments advisory service at Mercator, and the primary author of the report.

"Although the payments industry may not be able to end all types of payment fraud, it continues to evolve new fraud deterrents and become better equipped to tackle criminal attacks. The hope is that with the creation of new security technologies like tokenization, the industry can begin to play offense rather than always having to play defense against payment fraud attacks."

Highlights of the report include:

• an overview of global payment card fraud statistics, and an in-depth look at statistics from the U.K., France, Australia, and South Africa; and
• a review of initiatives by the payment industry and others to combat payment card fraud.

One of 10 exhibits in the 21-page report: