ECB: Payment fraud reported by the industry across the EEA amounted to €4.3bn in 2022 and €2.0bn in the first half of 2023. „Fraud rates appear noticeably higher for card payments.”

The value of fraud as a share of the total value of card payments using cards issued in the
EU/EEA slightly increased over the three reporting periods, from 0.026% in H1 2022 to 0.031% in H1 2023.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) and the European Central Bank (ECB) published today a joint Report on payment fraud data. The report assesses payment fraud reported by the industry across the European Economic Areas (EEA), which amounted to €4.3bn in 2022 and €2.0bn in the first half of 2023. The Report confirms the beneficial impact of strong customer authentication (SCA) on fraud levels.

The Report examines the total number of payment transactions and the subset of fraudulent transactions in terms of value and volume. In addition to the aggregated values, the Report also presents data based on volumes and also sorted by type of payment instruments, i.e. credit transfers, direct debits, card payments, cash withdrawals, and e-money transactions.

SCA-authenticated transactions featured lower fraud rates than non-SCA transactions, especially for card payments, both in terms of values and volumes. Furthermore, fraud shares for card payments, both in terms of values and volumes, were 10 times higher when the counterpart is located outside the EEA, where the application of SCA is not legally required and may therefore not have been requested. Hence, the report confirms the beneficial impact of the SCA requirements that were introduced by the PSD2 and the supporting technical standards that the EBA had issued in 2018 in close cooperation with the ECB.

The Report also finds that losses due to frauds were distributed differently among liability bearers depending on the payment instrument.

European Banking Authority & Europe Central Bank: 2024 – Report on payment fraud