Fleming: Card fraud done by international criminals

By DALE LUMA
THE majority of card fraud in the country is done by international criminals using various methods and means, Bank South Pacific (BSP) chief executive officer Robin Fleming says.
Fleming told The National that card fraud was the stealing of bank customer’s card information and data and was done at either an Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), Eftpos machines or through buying stolen information.
“All card fraud involves stealing someone’s card information or data,” he said.
“This may involve skimming devices at ATMs, skimming data from Eftpos terminals using wireless technology, buying stolen card data from other criminals, or sophisticated algorithm technology which acquires proprietary scheme card information.
“When card information has been stolen, criminals can either produce counterfeit cards or use the information to purchase goods and services using the internet, which is termed card-not-present activity which is the most common method of card fraud.”
Fleming said card fraud was growing throughout the world in countries such as Australia and PNG was also experiencing the same problem.
“Card fraud has rapidly increased worldwide and in Australia for example, the total card fraud in 2017 was A$539 million (K1.27bil) whereas cheque fraud was only A$5.4 million (K12.8mil),” he said.
“Most fraud experienced by our customers, and which is similar to statistics in Australia, is when they travel or use their cards overseas or use their cards to purchase goods or services on websites that do not have secure portals.
“To reduce the risk of a customer’s card data being stolen or manipulated banks are adopting new EMV (Europay Master Visa) chip cards which provide much improved security measures that are in built into the microchip in the card.”