Payment card fraud has long been a subject of attention in Europe. The expansion of retail trade at global level, facilitated by the Internet, has led European lawmakers to reinforce security measures for online transactions. This paper assesses trends in fraud in recent years, with a special focus on Internet card fraud, in light of the most recent regulatory measures.
In Italy, the rate of card fraud is below the average for the euro area. In the last three years, the online fraud rate has also come down. We show how this trend reflects the benefits of the adoption of recent EBA guidelines on internet payments security: losses from frauds have lowered starting in 2016. It also illustrates the main anti-fraud measures taken by banks and outlines consumer-protection mechanisms, to make online purchases more secure.
