Chip and Pin will force fraudsters online

The roll out of chip and Pin credit and debit cards in the UK will lead to an explosion in internet fraud, a recent study has claimed.

According to a newly published survey by CyberSource International, in association with Retail Logic, UK retailers fear that the enhanced security features will lead to criminals increasingly targeting e-businesses.

"Seventy five per cent of respondents believe that the successful rollout of chip and Pin in the UK will force more fraudsters to turn their attention to online crime," said Nathan Jackson, CyberSource managing director.

"As a result, UK operations are probably even more concerned about online fraud than their US counterparts."

Almost 60 per cent of UK respondents said that the problem of online fraud will become more serious for them in 2005, compared to 49 per cent in the US.

Some 60 per cent indicated that they believe criminals are continuing to become more sophisticated.

UK merchants are currently declining six per cent of orders due to suspicions of fraud, while a further 1.6 per cent of accepted orders turn out to be fraudulent.

Over two thirds of UK retailers responding to the survey accept international orders, identifying Nigeria as the riskiest source of transactions (35 per cent), followed by the US (13 per cent) and Indonesia (11 per cent).

Address verification and card security code checking are currently the most widely used methods of managing online fraud in the UK. This is mirrored by the US results.

Payer authentication services, offered by Visa and MasterCard, and the use of commercial fraud screening solutions, are seen as the two largest UK growth areas for 2005.

For next year, 17 per cent of the respondents intend to implement commercially prepared fraud screening tools.