Banking fraud drops as security measures kick in

 

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By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 5 Oct 2011 at 08:46

Security measures by the banks and e-criome police appear to be having an impact, with online banking fraud falling by a third compared to last year.

Amid an overall decrease in UK cards and banking fraud, online banking fraud losses plunged 32% to £16.9 million.

"The sustained fall is due to the success of a number of industry initiatives such as the increasing use of fraud detection software, the rollout of updated chip cards and the increasing rollout of chip and PIN technology abroad," the UK Cards Association said in a statement.

According to UKCA, the drop in banking fraud came despite an increase in the number of sites running phishing attacks trying to pry passwords out of users. In the first six months of the year, the industry spotted 37,198 sites, an 18% increase on last year.

Online shopping also saw a reduction in crime, with “card not present” payments - which include phone, internet and mail order fraud - falling by 8% to £110m.

However, the reduced "card not present" total still represented the lion's share of the total card fraud costs of £170m.