Phishing fraud cost €10m so far, down by 34 pct.

Fraud in the payment system decreased by 34 percent in the past six months, compared to the second half of last year. The total damage during the first half of 2014 amounted to about 9.5 million euro. The major fraud categories - online banking fraud and skimming of debit cards - both decreased significantly by 54 and 28 percent respectively. In its peak year of 2011, the damage caused by skimming amounted to 38.9 million euro. In the first half of this year it was only 640 thousand euros. The decrease in online banking fraud is mostly due to the fact that banks are better able to detect and prevent fraud. Another effective measure is the preventive blocking of foreign transfers within internet banking. The most damage done with internet banking was caused by phishing, but it still decreased with 47 percent in the firs half of this year. Damage done by malware decreased with 77 percent. Since the first half of 2012 the damage caused by skimming (copying the magnetic strip on a debit card) has been decreasing steadily. In the first half of this year there were only about a thousand skimmed cards. The implementation of new pins using the EMV chip instead of the magnetic strip, has made skimming very limited.