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. Read more

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20yrs of debit cards

Barclays will soon be celebrating 20 years of debit cards after it launched the UK’s first on June 3rd 1987.

The bank broke the mould when it introduced the Barclays Connect card and changed the face of banking forever.

Within nine months of its launch, one million people had a Connect card in their pocket and the debit card has gone from strength to strength ever since.

Today, around 68 million debit cards are in circulation, with many people owning more than one.

A total of 143 debit card purchases are made every second, 6.8 billion transactions take place each year and debit cards out number credit cards.

“Plastic has revolutionised the way people spend money over the last 40 years,” said Brian Cunnington, head of debit cards at Barclays.

“Ever since Barclaycard became the first credit card in Europe in 1966 the nation’s spending habits have changed.

“The introduction of debit cards 20 years later gave consumers even more flexibility allowing them to withdraw cash from ATMs as well as to have payments deducted directly from their current accounts when they paid in shops,” he added.

Debit cards have remained popular through slight changes that keep them up to date, such as the introduction of Chip and PIN technology.

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Chip and pin – one year on

It was more than a year ago that the UK was first introduced to the payment system of chip and pin.

February 14th 2006 was officially named Pin Day and consumers were told to brace themselves for one of the biggest changes ever seen to the way in which we paid for goods.

Of course it all went off without a hitch, despite scare mongering in some quarters that we would all suffer mental breakdowns as a result of having to remember our pin numbers.

To mark the anniversary of chip and pin, the UK payments association Apacs has released figures regarding the system and its implementation.

Apacs says that more than 185 chip and pin transactions take place every second, 138 million chip and pin cards have been issued and 98 per cent of all shop tills in the UK are chip and pin-friendly.

The association also points to credit card fraud figures, which fell in 2005 and are expected to do the same in 2006, while retailers have reported that transaction times have fallen after an initial bedding-in period.

“The rollout of chip and pin has been a tremendous success,” said Sandra Quinn from Apacs.

“Chip and pin cards now account for 97 per cent of all payment cards in circulation in the UK. As a result, it is now safer than ever to use your card when shopping, and far more difficult for fraudsters to get access to your money.”

Despite the positive figures, chip and pin technology was recently hacked into by researchers at Cambridge University as part of a project designed to test the system’s robustness.

Tags: hitch, rollout, credit card fraud, result, pin technology, pin numbers.To, Technology, part