Fraud Figures: ATM Fraud Now Decreasing in Europe
- The European ATM Security Team gathers information of European ATMs since 2005.
- EAST classifies ATM frauds under two main lines: card use-relate fraud (skimming, trapping, cash trapping and transaction reversal fraud) and physical attacks against the ATMs.
- The 2010 report is based on statistics provided by European 22 countries which represent 369,791 ATMs.
- The five countries to have deployed the largest number of automatons are the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, France and Italy. They represent 71% of the European park.
- According to EAST and the EPC, 97% of the ATMs in Europe complied with the EMV standard in the first semester 2010.
- According to this report, ATM frauds increased end 2007 / beginning 2008. Ever since, this trend has been reversed in terms of incidents and amounts: this shows that the measures implemented to fight fraud are indeed effective: AFAS measures, EMV deployment, analyses and detection are still developing.
- Since 2008, the number of EMV compliant ATMs in Europe exceeds 90%.
- Counterfeiting remains the most common kind of ATM fraud: 99.4% in 2010 and losses for 85% of the incidents. Nevertheless these losses are steadily decreasing: in 2010, they dropped 45% compared to 2008, while the number of incidents (including fraud attempts) is higher.
- Considering the geographical location of counterfeiting-related losses at ATMs, in 2010, 219.80 million euros of the fraud amount (out of 266.51 million, or 82.5%), were originated outside of the interrogated countries. Inside Europe, it only represents 46.6 million euros (51% decrease since 2008 and the lowest amount since 2005).
- To conclude, ATM fraud is mostly generated by card counterfeiting. Notwithstanding, EMV deployment in Europe has proved efficient, even if the number of incidents carries on increasing. Countries located outside of the European borders still cause troubles as they haven’t necessarily deployed the EMV standard on their cards and/or ATMs. Nevertheless, this issue is being solved step by step: Canada, South Africa and Russia now deploy the EMV standard. On 31st December 2010, 56% of the 59,000 ATMs in Canada were EMV compliant and 75% of the 90,000 ATMs in Russia (source: EAST).
- According to the ECB, during the first semester 2010, 57% of all POS transactions in euros were EMV compliant (an EMV transaction performed with an EMV card, using an EMV payment terminal and processed through EMV technology). The EPC deems that in the SEPA zone, end 2010, 81% of the cards, 89% of the POS terminals and 96% of the ATMs were EMV compliant.