A concerted effort to lower payments fraud in the UK
scored a big success in 2009 with total fraud falling to £541.9m
($824m), £162.4m (23.1%) less than in 2008, reports the UK Card
Association.
The decline broke a trend that had
seen fraud losses rise from £502.9m in 2005 to £704.3m in 2008.
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Card fraud led the improvement,
down £169.6m (27.8%) from £609.9m in 2008 to £440.3m in 2009. The
association noted the key role played by chip and PIN technology
introduced in 2004 in reducing card fraud.
Indicative of chip and PIN’s
efficacy in the card-present environment, losses at UK retailers
fell 67% between 2004 and 2009, lost and stolen card fraud fell 58%
and mail non-receipt fraud fell 91%. Total card-present fraud was
£173.9m in 2009, down 38.2% compared with 2008.
Card-not present fraud (CNP) at
£266.4m was the biggest loss area in 2009. This was, however, 18.9%
down on 2008, ending a rising trend in the fastest-growing fraud
category between 2004 and 2008.
During the period losses jumped
from £183.2m to £328.4m.
The association ascribed lower CNP
fraud to factors such as increased use of fraud detection tools by
retailers and banks and growing consumer use of authentication
solutions.
Marring a generally positive outcome in the war on crime in 2009
were online banking fraud losses, which rose 14 percent compared
with 2008 to £59.7m.
