The most common type of fraud

It was reported by the BBC last week that credit card is now the most common type of fraud. The report revealed that while overall crime across the UK and Wales is down, or at least stable, credit card fraud is increasing significantly. In fact it grew 40% from 2008 to 2009 with 4.7% of card holders falling victim to fraud in 2009.

Quite rightly the report questions the correlation between the surge in card fraud and the uptake of online. There’s no doubt in my mind that the internet is giving rise to more fraudulent attacks and I believe that as a result of its phenomenal growth we are battling a new trend of crime. With far greater numbers of people using the internet for online shopping and banking, volumes of card payments have increased exponentially. It’s therefore not surprising that fraudsters are challenging this channel with increasingly sophisticated methods.  In addition, this issue in not just restricted to the UK and Internet transactions, in India The Reserve Bank of India announced last week that it will fine Banks if they don’t improve the security of their phone banking.

Keeping up with the latest phishing scam or computer virus, fraudster or identity thief  in no easy feat and as a result the industry is struggling. It’s quite clear that we are now in need of better way of securing people’s payments and keeping their identity safe. I know I have said it before, but I am going to say it again anyway - the solution resides in the two channel method which I have talked about in previous blogs and involves splitting the authentication process!