25% Jump in Cross-Border Fraud on UK Debit Cards in 2014
The percentage of fraudulent transactions occurring outside the UK in 2014 on UK debit cards rose 25 percent in a massive sample of cards studied by analytic software firm FICO. Fraudulent cross-border transactions accounted for nearly a third (31 percent) of all fraudulent transactions on 52 million active UK debit cards studied by FICO, up from 23 percent in 2013. Cross-border transactions overall nearly doubled between FICO’s 2013 sample and 2014 sample.
“Criminals are now opting for card-not-present and cross-border fraud,” said Martin Warwick, FICO’s fraud chief in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “The alarming rise in cross-border fraud demands new technology, such as proximity location services that can identify whether the customer’s mobile is in the same place where the transaction is occurring. The UK reduced cross-border card fraud from £230 million in 2008 down to £80 million in 2011. But cross-border fraud has nearly doubled since then, and it’s time to get it back under control.”