Card fraud goes down whilst banking fraud increases

Recently released figures have shown that whilst credit card fraud in the UK has been going down, which will come as a relief to the many cardholders that have been fearful about becoming victims of this sort of crime, the level of online banking fraud has been increasing.

The reports have come from the group Financial Fraud Action, and have shown the trends in fraudulent activity in the UK.

Plastic card fraud has become a growing problem for consumes in the UK over recent years, and whilst CHIP and PIN technology has gone some way towards protecting consumers fraudsters have found other ways to conduct their criminal activity, such as focussing on Card Not Present transactions where the credit card itself is not required to make a purchase. This includes transactions conducted by post, by phone and via the Internet.

Officials have said that whilst card fraud has died down somewhat having soared over recent years online banking now seems to be a major target with fraudsters, with the level of fraud in the online banking sector having increased significantly.

With a rising number of people conducting their banking transactions and every day financial affairs online this could mean that many people fall victim to banking fraud.

With regards to the drop in card crime on industry expert stated: “Although it’s difficult to prove, we think that one of the reasons for this dip in card losses may simply be as a result of fraudsters realising that they can prosper more by targeting foreign-issued cards. Particularly those without chip-and-pin protection and which currently have stronger currencies than sterling. The fact that we’ve seen a 36% increase in the first half of this year in the amount of fraud being committed on foreign-issued cards here in the UK adds some weight to this theory.”