For debit issuers, the EMV migration is an expensive proposition. In Canada where the EMV transition is nearly complete and has almost reached 100%, they are beginning to seek the benefits through the drop in fraud losses. As discussed in Bank Info Security, Interac is reporting a 27% drop in fraud losses in just the last year. Mark Sullivan, who heads fraud management for Interac, Canada’s payment network provided the following details:
Canadian debit fraud dropped 27 percent in 2015, compared with the previous year, and accounted for the lowest fraud losses linked to debit compromises in six years, according to a new debit fraud update that Interac recently released.
Sullivan says the U.S. will likely see similar fraud-reduction patterns once its migration to EMV nears completion. But some unique fraud-fighting characteristics of the Canadian market, most notably its real-time settlement of debit transactions, may offer additional lessons from which the U.S. could learn, he says.“With Interac Debit, we do not have offline transactions; every transaction is an online transaction,” conducted in real time, Sullivan explains during this interview with Information Security Media Group. “So a data breach becomes non-existent for the debit cardholder. There is no information stored about the consumer, the individual, [nor] identifying features in the transaction that has just taken place; it’s not stored anywhere within the data of the posting merchant.
Although probably not measureable, it would be interesting to understand how much of the fraud simply moved to the U.S., an easier and larger target.
Overview by Sarah Grotta, Director, Debit Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group
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