UK Online Banking Fraud Drops

Vnunet reports that Apacs has published its annual survey of problems affecting the British banking industry, and the biggest surprise is that over online bankingfraud has fallen by a third between 2006 and 2007, even as phishing attacks have risen by over 70% to 25,796. However, it’s not all good news, since the total of card fraud losses took a 25%jump to just over one billion dollars, much of it from stolen UK cards used in overseas frauds. Notably the majority were committed in countries that don’t use the chip and Pin technology thathas been introduced in Britain. Sandra Quinn, director of communications at Apacs, said,   "Although card fraud levels have now begun to go up again due to fraud abroad and card-not-presentfraud losses, chip and Pin has proved an undoubted success in reducing card fraud on the UK high street. As more countries follow our lead and upgrade to chip and Pin, the opportunities for criminalsto use our stolen magnetic stripe details overseas will decrease."   Proof of the effectiveness of chip and Pin is the decrease in face-to-face transaction fraud in the UK since it wasintroduced two years ago – down by two-thirds to $150 million.