Newsroom

November 30, 2016

Fed: Debit card fraud losses up

A Federal Reserve report on debit card transactions, released Wednesday, shows debit-card fraud losses to all parties increased 44 percent between 2013 and 2015, reaching a total of $2.41 billion.

The estimate includes losses to merchants, cardholder and card issuers. The report showed the average loss in 2015 was 10.3 basis points as a share of transaction value compared to 8 basis points in 2013.

NAFCU continues to be staunchly opposed to the Dodd-Frank Act's Durbin amendment, which requires the Fed to set a cap of 21 cents on debit interchange fees plus 5 basis points times the transaction value and plus 1 basis point for fraud costs, when charged by financial institutions with $10 billion or more in assets. NAFCU has noted that, despite the increase in incidences of fraud, merchants are not passing on interchange savings to consumers or investing in effective cybersecurity to address losses.

NAFCU continues to monitor the national discussion on card fraud and has raised concerns about the effectiveness of methods like chip-and-PIN, as it does not protect against data breaches caused by malware.

NAFCU also continues to push for retailers and other merchants to be held to the same standards financial institutions already adhere to under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.