(2 June 2008 – Australia) New data released by APCA has shown safety in Australia’s payment systems, with the rate of fraud falling over the past year.The Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA), the payments industry self regulatory body, said that fraud rates remained low in their fourth issue of Australian payments data.
The results found that Australia’s total rate of fraud for cheques and payment cards has fallen slightly, dropping from 6.3 cents in 2006 to 6.2 cents for every $1,000 of payments.
For debit cards (EFTPOS and ATM), fraud dropped from 7.7 cents to 7.1 cents in every $1,000.
However, in some areas, fraud rates have increased. Credit and charge card fraud increased from 36.9 cents to 44.5 cents in every $1,000.
Card-not-present (CNP) fraud and cross-border fraud activity are the primary types of credit card fraud in Australia.
APCA’s chief executive officer, Chris Hamilton said that CNP and cross-border fraud increases are consistent with the UK and the Asia-Pacific region.
Hamilton added that the UK’s payment card fraud rate is the equivalent of $1.18 in every $1,000 as against slightly lower than 28 cents in Australia.
He said that particular focus needs to be made on non face-to-face payment transactions. Enhanced Data Security Standards and a progressive rollout of chip cards with their enhanced fraud prevention capabilities are on the agenda to reduce fraud.