Cards And Unsecured Business

Online credit card fraud continues to rise

While credit card fraud in the UK has decreased, CNP fraud has risen considerably, according to figures recently released by the Association of Payment Clearing Services (APACS).

Losses from card-not-present (CNP) transactions are up 44 percent on the same period last year, reports APACS. The total loss is around $280 million. However, to put these figures into context, the increase in online shoppers has to be taken into account.

“Losses from online, phone and mail order shopping fraud have continued to increase year-on. However, this increase has to be seen in the context of increasing numbers of people shopping online and ever-growing numbers of online transactions,” said APACS in a statement.

The introduction of chip-and-pin in the U.K. has managed to decrease domestic credit card fraud, however the criminals are now looking overseas to countries with no such protection. U.K. retailers have seen a drop of 11 percent in losses and ATM’s losses are down a massive 57 percent.

Meanwhile online banking fraud losses fell by 67 percent in the first half of 2007, which indicates that the fraud-prevention methods put in place by British banks are having a positive effect.

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