Australian Credit Card Fraud Rises

Post by Sharat on December 11, 2009 · Under banking, credit cards, online security · Comment

Credit card fraud and using other payment mechanisms in Australia increased by approximately 30 per cent for the year ending June, in large part due to the increase of fraudulent credit card use on the internet.

According the new data from The Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA), cheque, credit and debit card fraud has increased from 7 cents for every $1000 worth of transactions to 9 cents for every thousand transactions, representing an increase of nearly 30 per cent.

The largest increase in fraud occurred in transactions where the credit card was not physically present which is over the internet. The amount of internet based credit card fraud rose from $65.5 million to $82.1 million during the year ending June.

Chris Hamilton chief executive of APCA says the rapid growth of the internet as a result of the National Broadband Network which will provide high speed internet access poses the greatest challenge.

“The National Broadband Network is going to lead to more of a problem unless we have this under control,” Mr Hamilton said.

Online credit card fraud is usually as a result of a person storing their credit card details on their computer in order to facilitate easier and quicker transactions on the web. The data was either then stolen by a hacker or the keystrokes of the user were recorded by a trojan or virus.

The payments industry has two main lines of defence against online credit card fraud. The first being lender tracking of customer spending habits, flagging any unusual payments, and internet only PIN’s.

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