For the first time in more than a decade, the fraud rate for card transactions in France fell slightly last year, new figures show.
According to the Observatory for Payment Card Security, just 0.043% of transactions (representing EUR234.6 million) were fraudulent in 2014, down from 0.046% (worth EUR238.6 million) the previous year.
Despite a surge in the number of attacks on payment terminals from 188 in 2012 to 560 in 20914, the fraud rate has remained tiny at 0.010%. Meanwhile, contactless payments fraud rates were just 0.015%. Almost all cases were down to lost or stolen cards, and "contactless technology itself does not seem to have presented weaknesses for fraudsters to exploit," says the report.
Fraud rates are far higher for card-not-present transactions, at 0.248%, down slightly from 0.269% in 2013. The nominal value of online payment fraud continued to rise slightly to account for two-thirds of the total value of domestic fraud, despite the fact that online transactions make up just 12% of card payment value.
The Observatory says that biometrics could be one way to further bring down fraud rates but warns that there is still a "lack of maturity" in it application and is calling on industry players to draw up a set of standards.