News

REPORT: Majority of European ATMs now EMV compliant, card-skimming still rising

March 22, 2007

EDINBURGH, Scotland - The European ATM Security Team says 63 percent of the ATMs located in European countries it tracks have reached EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) compliance, but ATM-related crime in those countries continues to rise.In fact, EAST estimates that of the more than 335,000 ATMs in the 29 European countries focused on in its report, card-skimming remains the biggest ATM-related crime.

According to the report, in 2006, 4,571 card-skimming attacks in the region resulted in the loss of more than €305 million euros (U.S. $405.3 million). Those losses occurred despite the continuous introduction of chip-based cards and readers.

Adjusting the 2005 figures to take into account the same information, EAST found card-skimming attacks increased 23 percent, and losses associated with those attacks jumped 30 percent.

The losses, however, are still related to the magnetic stripe, which can be copied and used to produce counterfeit cards.

Other types of fraud, such as card trapping, cash trapping and transaction reversal, also are concerns, but to a lesser degree, EAST says. Of the 1,213 cases related to those types of fraud reported in 2006, losses totaled just more than €1 million (U.S. $1.3 million), down 47 percent from 2005.