According to the figures released by the UK Cards Association, the total fraud losses on UK cards fell to GBP 186.8 million between January and June 2010, a 20 percent decrease compared with losses in the first half of 2009. The fall can be ascribed to the introduction of a number of banking industry initiatives such as the increasing roll-out of updated chip cards in the UK, ongoing work with the retail community to raise awareness of the ways in which retailers can protect their chip and PIN equipment from criminal attack, greater sign-up to MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa by cardholders and retailers, increasing use of fraud detection tools by banks and retailers as well as the increasing roll-out of chip and PIN abroad.
Furthermore, losses related to online banking fraud totalled GBP 24.9 million in January to June 2010, a 36 per cent fall on the 2009 half-year figure. Various factors are believed to have contributed to the decrease in online banking fraud, including increased customer awareness of the need to protect their own computers with up-to-date anti-virus software and banks’ use of sophisticated fraud detection software.
Phone banking fraud losses amounted to GBP 5.8 million during H1 2010, reflecting an increase of 9 percent from January to June 2009. Most losses involved customers being tricked into disclosing security details, through cold calling or fake emails, which the criminal then used to commit fraud.
Finally, losses resulting from cheque fraud, have witnessed a decrease from GBP 15.6 million in the first half of 2009 to GBP 13.5 million during the same period in 2010. The decrease has been driven down by the industry’s use of fraud prevention profiling. However, the continuing drop in cheque usage has also contributed to the 13 per cent fall in overall cheque fraud losses.
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