According to The Nilson Report, global card fraud losses surpassed $11 billion in 2012 while the U.S. accounted for over 47 percent of the card fraud loss volume.
Payment card fraud losses incurred by merchants, acquirers and card issuers grew 14.6 percent from 2011 to $11.27 billion in 2012. These figures, estimated by Nilson, include Card Present and Card Not Present (CNP) fraud losses. Gross fraud losses were estimated at 5.22 cents per $100 spent on payment cards while card issuers absorbed most of the cost at 63 percent of global fraud losses.
It was also found that the U.S. accounted for 47.3 percent of the global card fraud losses in 2012, which was significantly higher than all other nations and more than double the United States’ share of total card transactions, 23.5 percent. The U.S. additionally led the world in CNP fraud losses, but is also the world’s largest eCommerce market.
According to Nilson and other sources, the primary reason for the growing card fraud losses is that lack of EMV adoption in several countries, but primarily the United States. According to the European Central Bank, 78 percent of all counterfeit card fraud occurs in nations where the adoption of EMV is behind that of Europe’s. Counterfeit card fraud in the U.S. alone was estimated to comprise more than one-quarter of the global fraud losses in 2012.
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