While overall percentages of online fraud continue to climb, one of our partners in fighting cyber crime, Retail Decisions (ReD), reported that card payment fraud in the UK dropped an estimated 15% last year. According to the article, “ReD Estimates a 15% Drop in UK Card Payment Fraud in 2009,” the value of online, mail order and telephone order fraud dipped to GBP278 million in 2009 from GBP328 million in 2008.

Retail Decisions CEO, Carl Clump, credits innovations in fraud prevention technologies for the estimated 15% decline over the past year. This defied the trend where overall CNP (card not present) fraud losses have grown consistently over the past five years. Despite the total drop in losses, Clump was quick to point out that the current trend, which would continue well into 2010, may not be here to stay.

“The positive impact of current fraud prevention technologies will still factor in 2010. We estimate a further 5% reduction in the value of CNP fraud throughout 2010. However, this downturn is unlikely to be ongoing. A return to previous growth trends in CNP fraud is expected for 2011, as fraudsters find more creative ways of conquering new security measures and tightened regulations.”

Carl further comments, “Payment fraud is an organised crime that will continue to evolve on a global scale. Despite constant innovation in fraud prevention, thieves will undoubtedly remain persistent in finding new avenues to perpetrate their trade, the latest of these being the migration to online channels like smart phones and ultra-portable laptops, which allow consumers constant access to online shopping sites. For consumers, the growth in mobile commerce brings greater convenience. However, for the fraudster, it brings an expanding payment landscape to attack. ReD’s role remains in being vigilant to new forms of fraudulent attack and protecting retailers at risk.”

According to APACS, the UK payments association, CNP fraud now accounts for 50% of plastic card fraud losses. While Retail Decisions estimates the total CNP fraud losses for 2010 to drop to GBP264 million, they don’t predict the same reduction for 2011.

Tags: card not present, CNP, fraud prevention, Online Fraud, payment fraud, Retail Decisions

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Online Retail. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.