Online banking fraud losses in the UK reached £52.5 million in 2008, a whopping 132% increase on the previous year's tally of £22.6 million, according to annual fraud figures released by payments association Apacs.
Although phishing incidents continue to increase, online banking customers are increasingly being targeted by malware attacks, says Apacs.
The payments body dismisses suggestions that the rise in online banking fraud is in any way connected with the introduction of the Faster Payements Service in May last year.
"Online banking fraud losses in the second half of 2008 more or less match those in the first half of the year," says Apacs.
The Association says the Met's Police Central e-Crime Unit (PCeU) will help tackle these losses by coordinating the work of police forces, the National Policing Improvement Agency and other agencies to improve standards of training and the police response to e-crime across the country.
Last week, UK authorities also set up a new intelligence unit, The Payments Industry and Police Joint Intelligence Unit (PIPJIU) formed from an amalgamation of the banking industrys Fraud Intelligence Bureau (FIB), the body that formerly distributed information between the banking industry and law enforcement throughout the UK - and the intelligence section of the DCPCU. In addition to the creation of the PIPJIU, Apacs has also established a Fraud Intelligence Sharing System (FISS) through which banks can share fraud information in a central database.
Other headline figures from the 2008 stats include an 18% rise in counterfeit card fraud to £169.8 million, a 39% jump in card ID theft to £47.4 million and a 13% increase in card not present fraud to £328.4 million.
Says Apacs: "Although card fraud losses have increased, losses as a percentage of plastic card turnover amounted to 0.12% in 2008 - equating to around a tenth of a penny lost to fraud in every £1 spent on cards - less than the 0.14% figure in 2004. This reflects the positive effect of chip and PIN as well as the fact that we continue to use our cards more and more each year."