By Julian Goldsmith, 2 May 2007 00:00
NEWS
Incidents of face-to-face credit and debit card fraud have tumbled by 67 per cent since the introduction of the chip and PIN standard 24 months ago.
But card fraud overall has only dipped by a few per cent according to payments industry organisation Apacs, with much of it migrating to card-not-present (CNP) fraud and overseas transactions.
According to Apacs cards and fraud control manager of operations, Martin Lewis, and head of cards technical unit David Baker, there are now 133 million chip and PIN cards in operation, supported by 900,000 sales terminals and more than 61,000 ATMs.
Speaking at the Retail Fraud conference in London this week, they confirmed 94 per cent of face-to-face payments are now PIN verified.
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This means that losses over the period through face-to-face card fraud have been reduced from £220m to around £70m. However, Apacs admits CNP fraud is up by 41 per cent and much of the card fraud has migrated to countries that have not adopted chip and PIN.
But this doesn't mean fraudsters have given up on face-to-face card fraud completely, with 'shoulder surfing' to detect customers' PIN numbers still being attempted.
Lewis said: "We've even seen a case where a camera was hidden in a charity box at the counter to capture PINs."
Baker added: "We need to examine the prevalence of PIN shields on PIN pads and would like to see manufacturers getting on board on this. We are also looking at ways to educate shoppers to shield the pad with their hand if they can."
Comments
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1. BillK
This is called displacement.
Over the counter card fraud in UK reduced, other card fraud increased. (Not quite as much, as the criminals are still learning new tactics).
So they spent over £1 billion on chip-and-pin to save overall only £80 million over two years.
Looks like this 'security' thingy needs considerably more thought than has been applied so far.
2. anonymous
Look at fraud as an industry. What this report says is:
"FraudCo's most profitable line has suffered from severe competition but it has already recovered most of the loss by expanding into new geographical markets and new market sectors, both of which are exhibiting huge growth. Competition is expected to enter those markets over time, but the outlook remains rosy."
The fraud industry is one of the most resilient around. Some of the brightest brains work in it and it is highly profitable.No amount of competition from enhanced security is going to be allowed to dent its turnover for long.
What is more, the social climate has changing to make "victimless crime" more acceptable. Recent industry iniitiatives like file sharing, piracy, insurance scams, even speeding and using mobiles in cars have demonstrated public acceptance of widespread crime is achievable.
We just need to accept that this is all a small price to pay for the great society we are building for ourselves.