A worrying trend of rising card fraud levels and losses is emerging across Europe, according to data analytics company FICO.
In its new European Fraud Map, FICO analyses data from Euromonitor International on 18 countries, showing that Card Not Present (CNP) fraud dominates card fraud losses and has increased across most countries.
“While card fraud loss figures are still lower than the 2015 peak of €1.642billion, the last few years show that fraud in Europe is steadily rising back up towards this figure,” explained James Roche, principal fraud consultant for FICO in EMEA. “The UK has followed a similar trajectory to the rest of Europe, aligning with what FICO has seen in terms of the dominant fraud MOs that plague both the UK and Europe, as well as the common approaches taken in the last decade via initiatives such as PSD and PSR.”
In fact, across EMEA, card fraud losses increased from around €1.493billion in 2021 to €1.578billion in 2024.
Fraud problems in the UK
In 2024, UK Finance reported £572.6million in total card fraud losses, a 3.9 per cent increase from £551.3million in 2023. This goes against the trend of the past few years of falling card losses and a broader trend of stabilisation in the UK payments landscape, which is a cause for concern.
Card Not Present (CNP) fraud remained the leading fraud category, accounting for around 70 per cent of total card fraud losses. This marks an increase of 11 per cent from 2023 and puts the UK at the top of the league table for CNP fraud losses in Europe, underscoring the persistent risk associated with remote transactions.
Conversely, identity (ID) fraud losses dropped significantly by 26 per cent to £58.7million, pointing to a shift in criminal behaviour away from ID theft and towards social engineering, data compromises and scams. The growing use of fraud enhancements such as biometric and behavioural monitoring tools is also likely to have contributed to the decrease.
Continued investment by UK and EU financial services in full customer journey visibility and data sharing is also enabling identity characteristics to be monitored from onboarding through early book and ongoing lifecycle stages of the customer journey.
“The UK has long been a leader in deploying innovative fraud technology, and clearly the challenges are still growing,” added Roche. “With PSD3 regulations now taking effect across Europe, we see fraud prevention teams moving towards a unified approach to fraud risk assessment. Continued investment in preventative tools, such as Scam Signal, and intelligence-led fraud detection remain critical to protecting card portfolios from evolving threats.”
The fraud picture in Europe
Elsewhere in Europe, FICO reveals that Hungary saw the greatest increase at 22 per cent, although card fraud losses also dramatically increased in Norway, Denmark and Hungary. The only countries that saw fraud levels fall were Portugal and the Netherlands.
Norway saw fraud losses dramatically increase over the last few years from €14million in 2021 to €26.4million, rising eight per cent in 2024 alone. Denmark also demonstrated a more than twofold increase in fraud losses (€19.6million to €47.6million) since 2021, and a concerning 20 per cent rise in 2024 alone.
Greece also experienced a significant increase, with a twofold increase from €13.4million to €28.4million since 2021 and a 20 per cent increase in 2024. Similarly, Sweden’s losses rose from €13.1million to €24.2million, an increase of around 85 per cent in three years, and 19 per cent during 2024.
Positive signs
Despite the overall EMEA loss picture trending slowly upwards, a few countries are seeing a downward trend in their card fraud losses. France’s losses have slowly but steadily decreased since their peak at €433.2million in 2018. They now sit at €409.2million, the second-highest losses of the 18 countries studied, but set a good example for controlling their losses.
Finally, Turkey showed significantly lower losses at €1.1million for 2024, but they too are reducing their fraud losses consistently and have done since their peak at €14million in 2010. However, in 2024, Turkey saw fraud rise by five per cent.
“With PSD3 regulations due to take effect across Europe in the next couple of years, financial institutions must work harder than ever to fight new fraud patterns and improve customer service,” Roche concluded. “We are seeing a number of emerging approaches that unify protection that is currently siloed, using 360-degree customer profiling to assess fraud and financial crime risk across all channels and products and throughout the entire lifecycle of the customer (onboarding through to offboarding). We at FICO believe this approach is absolutely critical, as criminals look for the weakest link in fraud defences.”
