Number Of Bank Card Frauds In Europe Rises Again

The number of bank card frauds in Europe has started rising again in 2012.

A survey of the European Central Bank (ECB) shows that the frauds had started increasing for the first time since 2008, mostly due to the increase in online payments.

According to the ECB data, 1 euro in every EUR 2 635  spent on credit and debit cards issued within SEPA - the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway and Switzerland - was lost to fraud.

That represents 0.038 percent of a total of EUR 3.5 trillion in transactions, up from 0.036%  2011, the ECB said.

The total value of fraud increased by 14.8 percent to EUR 1.33 B euros in 2012.

The report found that around 60% of the value of fraud resulted from so-called card-not-present (CNP) payments - payments made by post, telephone or the internet - while roughly 25% resulted from point-of-sale (POS) terminals and the rest from automated teller machines (ATMs).

The report also found that, on average, cards issued in France, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg experienced the highest losses from fraud as a proportion of regular transactions.