In 2019, losses from illegal payment card transactions declined from 2018. This is based on the reporting on the losses of banks, payment card holders and entrepreneurs from illegal actions/ suspicious transactions with payment cards in 2019, which were obtained by regulator.
The number and amount of damages due to fraudulent operations with payment cards decreased substantially
Last year, the losses from illegal actions with payment cards amounted to 0.0042% of the total value of all payment card transactions (in 2018 – 0.0092%, in 2017 – 0.0077%).
That is, only UAH 42 accounted for illegal actions/ suspicious transactions for every UAH 1 million in card-related expenditures in 2019. This is more than half of last year’s total.
On average, one illegal operation in 2019 accounted for about UAH 2,100, which is 16% less than in 2018 (UAH 2,500).
The overall number of fraudulent payment card transactions inflicting losses on banks dropped by one-third to 71,900 cases in 2019 (compared to 105,500 cases in 2018).
The largest number of illegal actions with payment cards in 2019 took place on the Internet, or 41,400 cases (58% of the total). However, this indicator was almost halved from 2018. At the same time, illegal transactions using ATMs and payments in trading networks are almost equal in number and amounts as the prior year.
Social engineering remains the most popular method of fraud
Last year, social engineering was most frequently used by fraudsters in committing illegal acts with payment cards and their data. It involves misleading citizens, in any way, for them to divulge their personal data, payment card details, or codes/ passwords. It also involved transferring funds under psychological influence to the gain of fraudsters. In most cases, fraudsters try to impersonate an employee of a bank or the National Bank (for example, its security agency) and actively begin to inquire about private information and other data.
The National Bank of Ukraine once again emphasizes that neither its representatives, nor the representatives of commercial banks, ever make such requests and have no need nor authority to ask citizens for information about payment cards, personal data and account balances.
Under no circumstances should a person disclose payment card details (expiration date, CVС2/CVV2 code, PIN code), as well as private information, one’s web-banking login and password, one-time passwords for additional authorization, etc.
In order to prevent and combat fraud, the NBU recommends not answering suspicious phone calls, and in case of doubt, referring to the bank that issued the payment card, monitoring payments and transfers and checking the balances of your accounts.
Furthermore, it is advisable to impose limits on payment card transactions, particularly for online transactions, and to use text messaging to conduct transactions.