European ATM-related fraud losses last year dropped for the second consecutive year, thanks largely to a reduction in card-skimming attacks, according to a report from the European ATM Security Team Ltd.
The organization, which received fraud-incident reports from 22 European countries, pegged losses in 2010 at 268 million euros (US$388.7 million), down 14.1% from 312 million euros the previous year.
Losses caused by card-skimming dropped 60.6% over a three-year period, to 123 million euros at the end of 2010 from 312 million euros in December 2007.
The declining figures “indicate that the significant investment made by the European banking sector into EMV (chip-and-PIN) technology, as well as into anti-skimming devices at ATMs, is now really starting to pay off,” Lachlan Gunn, the organization’s director and coordinator, said in a press release.
ATM-related fraud attacks fell 6.7%, to 12,383 incidents in 2010 from 13,269 the previous year, according to the report.
Physical attacks on ATMs fell 16.5%, to 2,062 incidents from 2,468. The number of reported explosive and gas attacks on ATMs, 278, represented an 87.8% increase from 148 in 2009. Overall losses from physical attacks rose 17.9%, to 33 million euros from 28 million euros in 2009.
Overall, card-skimming incidents increased in 2010 from a year earlier, but they decreased in the final six months.
The 22 European countries combined reported 10,497 card-skimming incidents, up 3.1% from 10,184 the previous year. There were 4,754 skimming attacks in the second half of 2010, down 14.4% from 5,555 in the second half of 2009.
Card trapping, in which thieves physically capture the card at the ATM and the PIN is compromised, decreased 30.5%, to 1,505 from 2,166.
Overall, the organization estimates there were 398,040 ATMs in Europe at the end of 2010, up 1.8% from 391,175 the previous year. France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom have a combined 280,664 machines, or 71.7% of Europe’s total.
Some 385,016 ATMs are EMV-compliant, representing 96.7% of the total and up from 94% the previous year. The organization did not provide the total number of EMV-compliant machines in 2009.
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