Fraud losses reached almost €85m in 2022
James Cox
A new report published today by FraudSmart, the fraud awareness initiative led by Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI), shows fraudsters stole nearly €85 million (€84.6 million) through frauds and scams in 2022.
This is an increase of 8.8 per cent on 2021. The FraudSmart Payment Fraud Report H2 2022 outlines how card fraud accounted for over 95 per cent of fraudulent payment transactions by volume but only 40 per cent of fraud losses at €33.4 million. Most of the increase was driven by online card fraud or ‘card not present’ fraud where a criminal uses the victim’s compromised card information to make an online purchase (up by 24 per cent in value year-on-year to €27.1 million in 2022).
The report also highlights the continued rise in value of unauthorised electronic transfers (primarily payments through mobile and online banking) which accounted for almost 39 per cent of fraud losses at €32.8 million, but less than 4 per cent of transaction volumes.
Meanwhile, there was a 19 per cent decrease in authorised push payment (APP fraud) transactions in 2022 compared to 2021, and APP fraud losses dropped by 41 per cent to €9.9 million, the lowest value since the data became available in 2019.
The report comes as FraudSmart warns consumers to be on high alert as text message fraud, known as smishing, continues to become more prevalent. A recent survey by the company revealed that this type of fraud is now the dominant channel for fraud attempts, with one in two adults having received fraudulent text message in the previous 12 months. These text messages often include a link and sense of urgency requiring immediate action.
Speaking about the latest figures, Niamh Davenport, head of financial crime, BPFI said: “Today’s figures show that card fraud continues to account for the vast majority of fraudulent payment transactions at 95 per cent of the total volume although these transactions tend to represent lower levels of losses on average. On the other hand, other fraud types have relatively low volumes but would have higher average losses, particularly any fraud that leads to account takeover where the fraudster takes control of your main bank account by tricking you into handing over your bank log in details, which we have seen recently through text message scams.”
