News

REPORT: EMV is driving down ATM-fraud losses in Europe, pushing fraud to other continents

April 28, 2008

EDINBURGH, Scotland — The European ATM Security Team has reported a 43 percent rise in skimming-related ATM fraud losses, mainly due to a â‚¬173.6 million (U.S. $270.5 million) increase in international losses.

The losses come inspite of a drop in actual incidents reported, the team says.

Not surprisingly, the team found that losses are occurring globally in countries where all or part of the ATMs deployed are not EMV compliant.

According to a news release, fraud losses occurring inside European countries have fallen year on year, an indication that the rollout of EMV-compliant ATMs is driving down losses.

According to EAST, 78 percent of European ATMs are now EMV compliant.

The overall trend remains a decrease in domestic losses for European card issuers, because of the EMV-compliant ATMs, and shows that the criminals continue to seek non-EMV compliant ATMs to obtain cash.

Criminals also are maintaining their focus on physical attacks on ATMs, which have risen by 65 percent. While the cash losses from such attacks are well below skimming-fraud levels, the risks to people and the collateral damage to property remain of great concern to the industry.

"While the increased fraud loss figures are of great concern, EAST members continue to benefit from international cooperation within the industry and with international law enforcement and judicial organizations," said EAST director and coordinator Lachlan Gunn. "We continue to focus on identified fraud trends for ATMs, POS terminals and other payment terminals, especially self-service payment terminals, which have a direct impact on crime perpetrated at ATM locations. The data that we gather continues to be of benefit to all parties involved in the cross-border fight against organized criminals."

Gunn reiterated that statistics indicate that European investment in EMV technology is driving down domestic ATM-fraud losses.

"International losses are anticipated to remain an issue for the industry until the vast majority of the world's ATMs become EMV compliant, and do not allow magstripe fallback," he said.