Online credit card fraud soars in UK
Rise in online credit card fraud points to greater need for joined-up approach in online retail
Print24 April 2015
Online credit card fraud increased from 43% in 2014 to 55% in 2015, according to The UK Retail Fraud Survey 2015.
Paul Bessant of Retail Knowledge, which commissioned the survey sponsored by WIS International, said: “This year’s Retail Fraud Survey also reveals that retailers expect the level of online sales set to rise from 20% currently to 52% in three years. Retailers need to introduce a joined up approach to shrink now rather than later; both online and offline channels need to work together in order to fight retail crime effectively.”
The results of the survey, now in its sixth year, were revealed at Europe’s largest loss prevention conference, ‘Retail Fraud’ held in London yesterday (23 April). The research also showed that retailers reflecting on recent online fraud events point to poor analytics and monitoring as their biggest concern (38% of retailers). A high proportion of retailers that trade online do not have even basic analytics systems (some 46%).
Meanwhile in general terms, he biggest area of store loss for the leading UK retailers is shoplifting or external theft (36% of respondents). This is followed by employee theft of stock at 28%. This contrasts with American retailers that generally put losses due to staff ahead of losses due to the public.
The results surrounding greater online transactions chimed with the latest findings of separate research from The UK Cards Association. This showed payment card expenditure in January amounted to £48.8 billion, 5% above the level a year ago. Online and contactless spending were among the factors driving this growth. The number of purchases made online accounted for 12.3% of total purchases, up from 11.1% the previous month. During January around 4% of total purchases were made using contactless technology, up from 1% the year before.
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