Online banking fraud plummets

Online banking fraud has fallen by 67 per cent during the first six months of 2007 compared to the same period last year, according to UK payments association Apacs.

But plastic fraud on UK-issued cards has gone up by 26 per cent during the six months to June.

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And card fraud committed overseas on UK-issued cards has shot up by 126 per cent.

Apacs said the introduction of chip and PIN has made it harder for criminals to commit card fraud in the UK, forcing them to go abroad where the tech is not in place.

But Apacs predicts this effect will lessen as more countries roll out chip and PIN technology.

Sandra Quinn, director of communications at Apacs, said these figures show fraudsters have changed tack by working overseas. This in turn has encouraged other countries to speed up implementation of chip and PIN tech.

The European banking industry has set a target of completing chip and PIN rollout by 2010.

Online banking fraud in the UK fell from £22.4m between January and June 2006 to just £7.5m during the same period in 2007.

Apacs attributes this 67 per cent reduction to banks implementing new measures to detect and prevent fraud, as well as the unusually high rate of this type of fraud in the first half of 2006.

Overall in the UK, card fraud has fallen by four per cent, which Apacs says is largely down to chip and PIN. Losses at UK retailers were down 11 per cent, while cash machine losses fell by 57 per cent.

Compared to the first half of 2006 card-not-present fraud (covering online, phone and mail order) increased by 44 per cent - from £95.3m to £137m.

Apacs also said the rise is partly down to a 157 per cent increase in the number of adults shopping online in the past five years. During that period card-not-present fraud has only increased by 122 per cent.