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Johannesburg - The value of debit card fraud losses decreased by 42% between January and September this year compared to the same period last year, the SA Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) said on Monday.
It fell from R204m to R117.7m over the two years, it said in a statement.
This was according to the banking industry’s latest card crime statistics released by Sabric on Monday.
The industry was however concerned about the increase in credit card fraud. Credit card fraud losses increased by 22% from R300.6m last year to R366.8m in 2013.
Sabric CEO Kalyani Pillay said the decrease in the value of debit card fraud could be attributed to changes in business processes and systems in banks, and collaboration between the industry and law enforcement.
Card-not-present fraud increased by 16% during the same period from R154.7m in 2012 to R178.7m this year.
"The statistics have indicated that most credit card fraud losses occurred outside the borders of South Africa for the period under review," Sabric said.
Last year, 45% of credit card fraud happened outside South Africa. This figure increased to 60.1% in 2013.
Credit card fraud losses on South African-issued credit cards used inside the country decreased by 11.4%.
Counterfeit card fraud remained high.
"Criminals are progressively using counterfeit South African-issued credit cards in neighbouring countries such as Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique and these transactions are mostly related to fraudulent cash withdrawals at ATMs," Pillay said.
