INDUSTRY FOCUS
Increased UK fraud is on the cards
The UK’s card fraud losses were the biggest in Europe, and account for nearly half of the €1,616 million (£1,400 million) lost to fraud across the 19 countries on the map, according to analytics software firm FICO’S annual European survey.
“The threat of fraud in the UK has been persistent and growing extensively over the past seven years,” said Matt Cox, vice-president for fraud management solutions in Europe at FICO.
“The sheer volume of attempted fraud has meant that, although more fraud is being prevented now than ever before, and that it’s being caught earlier in the attack cycle, the total value lost is still on the rise.
“Personal information lost in high-profile data breaches means it’s easier than ever for criminals to impersonate individuals and businesses, so we all need to be more vigilant, both personally and as an industry.
“We’re seeing the continued growth and diversification of social engineering fraud, which uses techniques like vishing, phishing and whaling.”
Money laundering via mule accounts also remains a challenge for banks. With the proliferation of real-time payments – made possible by Faster Payments in the UK and SEPA Instant Credit Transfer across Europe – criminals can move and retrieve their ill-gotten gains between accounts and across borders on a near instant basis. This makes fraud harder to follow, catch and remediate once it has taken place.
“The key to fighting online fraud lies in establishing practices to protect against data compromise,” added Cox.
“Drawing on global networks of loss data and confirmed cases of fraud enables businesses to identify and prevent data breaches significantly earlier, thereby reducing the customer losses and operational pressures that often result from these attacks.”
