Credit card chips to increase “Card not present” online fraud by criminals

U.S. banks are issuing replacement credit cards to consumers that contain a microchip designed to make cards harder to counterfeit and use in stores. Those chips cards won’t stoponline fraud, because computers lack chip card readers. All of this means that leading criminals will likely attempt more fraud on the web.

According to The Nilson Report, U.S. credit and debit card issuers, acquirers and merchants already bore the brunt of (48.2%) of the $16.31 billion in losses due to all forms of payment fraud globally last year. The rest of the world has already phased in chip cards, following what’s called the EMV (short for EuroPay, MasterCard, Visa) card standard. The United States is the last large nation to make the shift to EMV.

Use of counterfeit cards cost U.S. issuers$3.9 billion last year, accounting for 23.9% of total global fraud losses. With the Oct. 1 deadline for chip cards in the United States retailers and others expect the criminals to engage in online fraud purchases. After Oct. 1, any U.S. merchant that has not deployed chip card readers in its stores will assume the burden for any fraud that occurs on credit and debit card purchases in its locations.

Over the next five years, “[card-not-present fraud] will continue to grow as EMV becomes ubiquitous worldwide, leaving online sellers the primary focus of experienced, sophisticated criminals,” writes Nilson Report publisher David Robertson, in a report released this month that analyzes 2014 fraud costs.

Jeffrey Newman represents whistleblowers.