The UK has just experienced the highest jump in card fraud in Europe. Here’s why
Card fraud is regarded as an unpleasant fact of life by many – but it turns out things are looking worse in the UK than anywhere else in Europe.
According to research by software analytics firm Fico, the UK experienced an 18 per cent jump in card fraud losses in 2015 – the highest of any country in Europe. That's £88.5m higher than 2014.
In fact, the UK alone made up 43 per cent of total card fraud losses across the 19 European countries studied.
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And most of that – some 75 per cent, or £66.7m – came from "card not present" transactions, with £42.4m of that coming from e-commerce (no mention of contactless – yet).
So what's going on? Fico fraud consultant Martin Warwick suggested an increase in data breaches in the UK was partly to blame.
But he added that it was also down to lenders.
"Banks want to avoid intervening unnecessarily when customers are shopping on the internet. E-commerce spending has quadrupled since 2007, so you can see why this is such a target for criminals."
The UK wasn't the only country hit. Denmark and France both experienced increases in card fraud, the report suggested.
However, across the whole of Europe, total value lost to fraud actually fell, from 0.08 per cent of card payments in 2010 to 0.06 per cent in 2015.
"The further projected increase in online payments over the forecast period suggests additional security measures will be required throughout Europe," said Kenrick Sands, senior consumer finance analyst at Euromonitor.