Report on Fraudulent Payment Transactions in Italy - 1st Half of 2025

4 February 2026

Banca d'Italia today published the Report on Fraudulent Payment Transactions in Italy for the first half of 2025.

This semi-annual report examines the evolution of risks associated with the main digital payment instruments (bank transfers, debit and credit cards, e-money, and ATM withdrawals) issued by payment service providers (PSPs) operating in Italy and used in retail transactions, with a special focus on payment channels (physical POS and e-commerce), geographical scale (domestic and cross-border transactions), and the security measures in place (e.g. Strong Customer Authentication - SCA).

In the first half of 2025, the fraud rate - calculated as the ratio of the value of fraudulent transactions to the total value of payment transactions - remained low:

  • €3 per €100,000 transacted (0.003 per cent by value).

Significant differences persist, however, across payment instruments. The fraud rate is stable year-on-year for:

  • payment cards (€18 per €100,000 transacted; 0.018 per cent by value);
  • ATM withdrawals (€10 per €100,000 transacted; 0.01 per cent by value);
  • bank transfers (€2 per €100,000 transacted; 0.002 per cent by value).

The fraud rate increased for e-money transactions, especially with prepaid cards: the incidence of fraudulent transactions rose to €31 per €100,000 transacted (0.031 per cent compared with 0.027 per cent in the same period last year).

The fraud rate for instant SEPA credit transfers (€43 per €100,000 transacted; 0.043 per cent by value), although higher than that for standard SEPA credit transfers, fell significantly compared with the previous half-year. This reduction reflects, among other factors, the strengthening of prevention measures and awareness initiatives taken by PSPs following the entry into force of the Instant Payments Regulation (IPR), which required PSPs to check, as of 9 October 2025, that the payee's name and IBAN match (Verification of Payee - VOP) to reduce the risk of fraud and errors in SEPA transfers.

Looking at payment channels, e-commerce transactions continue to show a higher risk than those executed at physical POS terminals. The gap is narrowing for debit and credit cards, and increasing for e-money (prepaid cards).

With regard to geographical scale, cross-border transactions, especially outside the European Economic Area, show a significantly higher incidence of fraud than domestic transactions, particularly for payment cards and e-money.

As for the effects of security measures, SCA payments show very low levels of risk and are significantly safer than non-SCA payments, especially in cross-border transactions.

Security measures appear less effective in cases of payer manipulation - i.e. tricking users into initiating a payment to a fraudulent beneficiary. Payer manipulation remains the predominant form of fraud in bank transfers.

Transactions involving payment cards and e-money are instead mainly affected by unauthorized transaction fraud, such as the theft of data or of the payment instrument.