At the end of 2017, losses of Ukrainian banks incurred from illegal payment card transactions decreased in contrast with 2016. This positive trend is seen for the first time since 2015.
Director of the NBU Payment Systems and Innovative Development Department Oleksandr Yablunivskyi reported to this effect at the press briefing on Statistics and Trends of Payment Fraud in 2017: Outcomes of the National Program for Security of Cashless Settlements Safe Card in Ukraine.
"In 2017, the figure was 0.0077% of the total payment card transactions (in 2016 - 0.011%). Thus, for each million of card debit operations illegal transactions accounted for 77 hryvnias, while in 2016 the respective amount was around 110 hryvnias," noted Oleksandr Yablunivskyi, "In general, at average each illegal transaction in 2017 accounted for UAH 2,100."
2017 was noted for a boost in illicit actions/ suspicious operations transacted on-line. Oleksandr Yablunivskyi explained that this trend could be attributed to the shift in defrauders’ focus from technical methods of fraud to human error thus compelling all market players to take actions for promoting financial literacy of payment card holders. At the same time, payments in retail stores are turning into one of the most secure payment card operations (in contrast to losses incurred by card holders and banks due to ATM and on-line operations).
The number of fraudulent payment card transactions inflicting losses on banks in the previous year dropped down to 77,600 incidents (versus 95,000 incidents in 2016). Customarily, the major portion of fraudulent operations (97%) is committed in big cities of Ukraine (with the population over one million) and in big oblasts.
The NBU would like to remind that payment card users should take precautions and avoid disclosure of private information and payment card details (expiry, CVС2/CVV2, PIN), as well as web-banking login and password, one-time passwords for additional authorization of payments or access to e-banking (bank managers never ask for this information).
In order to prevent fraudulent actions the NBU also recommends to refer to SMS notification services and impose limits on payment card operations.