EU payment fraud on the rise, hits 4.2 billion euros in 2024

Brussels – In the EU, payment fraud is on the rise. In 2024, it reached 4.2 billion euros, up 700 million euros compared with 2023 (3.5 billion euros). The European Central Bank is now calling for vigilance. In a report drafted with the European Banking Authority (EBA), the ECB noted that “new types of fraud are on the rise, particularly the manipulation of payers, which will require additional and new mitigation approaches.”

Payment manipulation is a type of fraud perpetrated by individuals who pretend to be someone they are not (a company, a public body, a bank, such as the ECB itself) to request money transfers and deposits. This type of fraud is especially prevalent with bank transfers, but is increasingly exploited for card payments.

Looking at the data collected by the ECB and the EBA, it is not surprising, therefore, that in 2024, the total losses for credit transfers amounted to 2.2 billion euros (an annual increase of 16 percent), with 85 percent of the total (more than 1.8 billion) “mainly” due to fraudulent transactions. For cards issued in the European Union and the European Economic Area (EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway), payment fraud totaled 1.3 billion euros (an annual increase of 29 percent). 

A specific section is then devoted to fraudulent e-money transactions. In 2024, these generally appeared to be concentrated in the countries where e-money payments were most prevalent. In absolute terms, Luxembourg recorded the highest value of fraudulent payment transactions (45.3 million euros), while Italy recorded the highest volume (over 447 thousand transactions).