Johannesburg - The banking industry has seen a 13 percent overall decrease in card fraud for 2015, the SA Banking Risk Information Centre ( Sabric) said on Wednesday.
Credit card fraud decreased by 28.6 percent from R353 million in 2014 to R252m in 2015, said CEO Kalyani Pillay.
This was for the period between January and September.
“The banking industry attributes the overall decrease to various measures implemented to fight the scourge of card fraud which have been effective,” Pillay told reporters at a briefing in Johannesburg.
“These measures include the continuous improvement of internal systems and processes as well as the roll out of chip and PIN technology for debit cards.
” However, debit card fraud increased by 8.3 percent. Debit card fraud for 2015 was at R257 million compared to R237 million in 2014, said Pillay.
She said overall card fraud in South Africa occurred mostly in Gauteng, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. There were, however, increases of fraud in Mpumalanga and the Eastern Cape.
Most of the stolen money from credit cards was spent outside of South Africa.
“At least R101m was spent in the country, and R150.9m was spent in other countries. With debit cards it was the opposite, with R193.2m spent here, and R63.9m spent in other countries,” said Pillay.
With the festive season approaching and consumers expected to spend more cash, Pillay advised bank customers to be vigilant when using ATMs. “No one should know your pin, not even your family member.
Do not accept help at an ATM, because that is where card skimmers harvest card information.
Use your other hand to hide the PIN as you put it in at the machine,” she said.
AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY