Banking and finance: robberies down, fraud up

Deep Dive 1: The risk profile of banks has changed over the past two decades...

As part of our 2019 Deep Dive series, we explore fraud in banking and finance. Stay tuned in the coming weeks leading up to Security 2019 for the trends affecting the different sectors.

Research suggests that robberies of financial institutions are on the decline and have largely been dealt with by effective cash security, cash recyclers at branches and the movement of would-be armed robbers to softer targets such as clubs, bottle shops and retail outlets.

However, Australia’s banks and financial institutions remain at high risk of security breaches, warns Daniel Lewkovitz, chief executive of security firm Calamity. “Banks by their very nature face tremendous risk of IT intrusion and risks to customer assets such as card skimming, cash syphoning off of accounts and general fraud that affects their customers,” Lewkovitz says. “These risks are generally less physical in nature but are still of utmost importance to the organisations.”

Credit card fraud remains a thorn in the side of financial institutions, with figures showing increasing activity. In the 12 months to June 2018, Australian credit card fraud grew by 4.8 per cent, totalling $565 million. However, 85 per cent of fraudulent credit card activity is now occurring online, prompting a greater call for two-factor authentication and other preventative measures such as online authentication of customer data with biometrics.

Counterfeit card skimming fell in the period 2016-2017 from $59.2 million in 2016 to $30.9 million in 2017. This decrease can most likely be attributed to the global shift to using EMV chip technology.

Read the next Deep Dive: Devil in the retail: spotlight on shrinkage

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