Samport

Credit and charge card fraud has been rising in Australia, while debit card and check fraud has decreased, says the Australian Payment Clearing Association (APCA).

In 2007, credit and charge card fraud accounted for 88 percent of the total number of fraudulent transactions in Australia.

APCA includes fraud involving Visa- and MasterCard-based debit cards in the category of credit card fraud. Australian banks only started issuing MasterCard debit cards in 2005, although Visa debit has been available for many years.

Australia also operates a proprietary debit card scheme called EFTPOS, which accounts for the majority of domestic debit transactions.

EFTPOS debit cards used at the point of sale and ATMs accounted for 12 percent, and checks for just 0.4 percent of all fraudulent transactions in 2007. As they are PIN-based, EFTPOS cards cannot be used on the Internet or over the phone.

APCA says that in the year to December 2007, the value of fraudulent transactions per A$1,000 (US$958) transacted was 0.8 cents for checks, down from 1.92 cents in 2006. EFTPOS debit card fraud was 7.17 cents per A$1,000 of transactions, down from 7.73 cents in 2006.

Over the same period, credit and charge card fraud was 44.50 cents per A$1,000 of transaction, up 17 percent from 36.93 cents in 2006.

The largest component of Australia's credit and charge card fraud was due to card-not present (CNP) and cross-border fraud, APCA says. CNP includes fraud conducted over the Internet, phone, mail and fax.

"While Australia's payment card fraud rate has increased over the last 12 months, it still remains low by global standards," says APCA CEO Chris Hamilton. "For example, the UK's payment card fraud rate is the equivalent of A$1.18 in every A$1,000 as against slightly under 28 cents in Australia."

Source: ePayments.com, June 6th, 2008.