Josh Gunnell, head of fraud & ID pre-sales at TransUnion in the UK, comments on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) crime in England and Wales statistical bulletin:
“The latest ONS crime figures reveal an overall increase of 15 per cent in fraud offences in the last year, based on the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). With bank and credit card fraud the main driver of this increase – up 17 per cent to over 2.6 million offences – the figures highlight the major issues surrounding payments security, financial crime risk detection and authentication controls.
“Implementing solutions to address these challenges is critical to help combat the rise in financial crime, and with the forthcoming PSD2 regulation, which will require strong customer authentication (SCA), businesses are under pressure to step up their controls. The Financial Conduct Authority, however, has set out a phased timeline which is a welcome support to ensure businesses have sufficient time to put in place the right solutions to counter the increasing offences, without compromising user experience.
“Recent UK Finance statistics stated that losses due to unauthorised transactions on cards, cheques and remote banking reached £408.3 million in the first half of 2019, but also confirmed a 14 per cent increase in prevented fraud in the same period, with banks stopping the equivalent of £4.5 million a day of attempted unauthorised fraudulent transactions. It’s really positive to see that the tools currently adopted – including those developed by TransUnion – are working but more widespread adoption of innovative and predictive solutions is essential, and the new regulation will be a key driver in making that happen.”
Source: TransUnion Press Release
