EAST supports Europol Strategic Payment Card Fraud Meeting

On 20-21 November 2017, Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), with the support of EAST, hosted an international meeting with a specific focus on combating payment card fraud across Europe and beyond.

In its sixth occurrence since it was first organised in Singapore in 2015, this meeting was held for the first time at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague, bringing together representatives from 3 regions of the world: 8 EU Member States (Portugal, Greece, France, Denmark, Spain, Romania, Bulgaria and Italy), Latin America (Argentina, Dominican Republic, Chile, Colombia and AMERIPOL) and Asia (Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and ASEANAPOL).

The EAST presentation focused on combating payment card fraud from the perspective of the private sector – EAST Executive Director Lachlan Gunn gave an overview of EAST and presented the latest threats, criminal methodologies and crime and fraud statistics.  EAST Development Director Rui Carvalho, who chairs the EAST Payments Task Force (EPTF), covered the latest payment crime trends as reported at the 43rd EAST Meeting.

The latest European Central Bank Report estimates €1.44 billion losses in Payment card fraud in 2013 The overall losses were up 8%. Card Not Present (CNP) fraud has experienced significant increases in Europe in the last years and although Card Present Fraud (CP) within the EU decreased during the last years still remain significant as the EMV (chip and pin) protection has not yet been fully implemented. In fact, organised crime groups set up permanent bases in overseas locations where Chip is not implemented cashing out compromised European cards.

EAST has supported all the Europol Strategic Meetings on Payment Card Fraud held in the ASEAN and LATAM regions.