Loss from fraudulent card transactions in 2024 increases by 37% while their number decreases by 1% – NBU
The number of fraudulent payment card transactions in Ukraine in 2024 decreased by 1% and amounted to 270,000, but the amount of losses increased by 37%, to UAH 1.1 billion, according to statistics from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU).
"This is due to an increase in the average amount of one illegal transaction by 39% compared to 2023 (from UAH 3,065 in 2023 to UAH 4,247 in 2024)," the National Bank explained the increase in losses on Monday.
According to the bank, due to the increase in the total amount of payment card transactions by 8%, the relative level of losses from fraud increased more moderately by 28%. As a result, for every UAH 1 million of card transactions, there were UAH 176 of fraudulent losses. The vast majority of fraudulent transactions, as before, were carried out on the Internet.
It is noted that for every million payment transactions, there were 31 cases of fraud, and their relative share decreased by 8% compared to 2023 due to the growth in the total volume of transactions.
The structure of fraudulent transactions by place of their execution remained stable: 83% of cases occurred on the Internet, and 17% through physical devices, in particular in the retail network, ATMs and self-service terminals.
However, the situation has changed in terms of the amount of losses, the NBU said:the share of online fraud increased to 93% compared to 86% in 2023, while the share of losses through physical devices decreased to 7%. The average size of a fraudulent online transaction increased by 51% and reached UAH 4,761 compared to UAH 3,150 a year earlier.
In 2024, as before, the main cause of fraudulent transactions remained social engineering – cases when customers themselves disclose their personal data, card details, SMS codes and passwords, the NBU said. According to its data, such cases accounted for 84% of the total amount of losses, which is more than in 2023, when this figure was 80%.