Industry hails initiatives as card fraud tumbles

Total fraud losses on credit and debit cards dropped by 20 per cent year-on-year during the six months to the end of June to 186.8m, according to the UK Cards Association.

The group attributed the drop to a range of initiatives, including the roll-out of updated chip and pin cards and work with retailers to help them protect payment equipment from criminals.

Growing numbers of consumers are signing up to schemes such as MasterCard SecureCode, which makes it harder for fraudsters to use their cards over the internet, while banks are also increasingly using fraud detection tools.

Losses in all areas of card fraud fell during the six months, apart from fraud involving cards that were lost in the mail, which rose by 9 per cent to 3.8m.

Counterfeit fraud, under which the details of cards are skimmed to produce cloned cards, saw the biggest decline at 39 per cent to 28.2m, while losses as a result of identity theft were 37 per cent lower at 15m.

Fraud on lost or stolen cards was down by 15 per cent, and card-not-present fraud, where criminals use people's cards to buy things over the internet, telephone or through mail order, dropped by 12 per cent.

There was a 23 per cent fall on money lost through overseas fraud on UK-issued cards to 51.5m, as more countries introduced the chip and pin system.

Banks and building societies also made headway in the battle against online account fraud, with losses falling for the first time since 2007.

Losses dropped 36 per cent compared with the same period of 2009, to 24.9m, as consumers became more aware of the need to protect their computers with up-to-date anti-virus software and banks introduced sophisticated fraud detection systems.

But the group warned that losses in this area had been volatile during the past five years, and the fall may not be the start of an ongoing trend.

It added that the number of people who had fallen prey to phishing attacks, under which people are tricked into revealing their account details and password, increased by 21 per cent to 31,448 compared with the same period of 2009.

Phone banking losses were up by 9 per cent to 5.8m.