Card Fraud: Decrease in Skimming Figures in Belgium
- In the beginning of 2011, the Belgian federation of the financial sector, Febelfin, announced that 23 Belgian banks decided to lock Maestro debit cards by default for cash withdrawals and payments outside of the European Union starting 17 January 2011. This measure comes as a consequence of a previous increase in debit card counterfeiting by skimming of their magnetic stripe and the use of fake cards for transactions made outside of Europe. In 2010, only 2.5% of Maestro debit card transactions were made outside of Europe.
- In May 2011, the Febelfin indicates that skimming figures went down from 498 to 25 from the 17th of January to the 30th of April 2011. This represents a 95% decrease compared to the same period in 2010.
- For Belgian Maestro debit cardholders living or travelling outside of Europe, the banks propose temporary or permanent unlocking. This option currently concerns 0.2% of the cardholders, or 20,000 debit cards out of more than 10 million.
- In Europe, bank card fraud remains a central preoccupation. In Germany for instance, experts from the banking sector now argue in favour of the improvement of international standards
- In 2010, Germany registered skimming figures 55% superior to those registered in 2009. The 2009 rate had almost been reached by the end of the first half 2010. These attacks on 1,765 compromised ATMs have decreased after several hundreds of “old” automatons were replaced: they did not comply with the most recent security standards. In France, the AFAS Anti Fishing Anti Skimming has been set up to fight these threats. On the EU-level, the number of ATM attacks went down 17% from the first to the second semester 2010.
See April 2011 Watch.
- Germany witnessed its first case of magnetic stripe hack in gas stations (in the north of the country). Counterfeited cards were then used to withdraw funds in Columbia and in the US. As ATM skimming attack possibilities are dwindling, fraudsters head for regions were the EMV technology is not in place and where mag-stripe cards are still in use.
- The ZKA now tries to push card schemes (MasterCard and Visa) into generalising the use of smartcards on an international level. As migration costs are particularly high, the adoption of the EMV standard as well as the implementation of adapted equipment does take time in several countries, including in the United States. Card counterfeiting and fraudulent use of mag-stripe data, is then very present in the US today.
See January 2011 Watch
- Mr. Joerg Ziercke president of the German Federal Criminal Police Office, BKA, recommended several measures to fight fraud: for instance, he proposed to disable bank card transactions in non-EMV countries, and possible unlocking upon customer’s request (this measure has already been implemented by some German banks). If so, non-EMV countries would have to face severe losses and adopting EMV technology would cost them less.
Skimming: fraud technique consisting in copying the magnetic stripe of the card (see below), when legitimate payments are being made at self service automatons (car park, gas stations, toll roads, etc.), using ATMs or POS terminals in convenience stores. In some cases the fraudster also retrieves the PIN code through using a mini-camera or installing a fake keypad.
See March and April 2011 Watches