The UK Cards Association has released pleasing figures this week announcing that card fraud in the UK has continued its steady decline.
In news which will please all e-commerce businesses the Association has also confirmed that fraud in transactions made online, over the phone or via mail order (card not present - CNP purchases) has also dropped by 3% from years 2010 to 2011.
All in all the trend is positive, with a fall from £290.5m lost in CNP transactions in 2007 to £220.9m lost last year.
The fight to make such transactions more secure certainly does not end here and the amount lost remains significant. It is important to note that the number of online transactions has risen significantly over the last two years in particular, so it is encouraging to see fraud not following that upward trend.
In total fraud losses on all card transactions in the UK fell 7% from £365.4m in 2010 to £341m in 2011. Last year the amount lost was lowest since 2000.
There are many reasons to support such positive results. Cooperation between banks means that information about any fraudulent transaction is quickly shared and that data is then used by software such as 3D Secure to spot risky transactions. In addition retailers and shoppers are also much better equipped to avoid fraud. Many of us now use antivirus software which protect our computers from attacks set out to steal cardholder data. We are also much better at recognising illegitimate websites set up by cyber criminals.
The effort put in by retailers has been huge, with SSL certificates and other forms of protection now being used by almost any respected online shop.
These results will surely please consumers who still see plastic as the ideal way to pay for their Internet shop. Many of us however have now switched to other forms of online payments and will be awaiting results regarding fraud around those. Hopefully there is more good news to come from them.