Responding to organised payment card compromise and subsequent fraud

Abstract

The global endemic crime problem of payment card compromise and subsequent fraud continues to pose extreme challenges for the payments processing industry and for law enforcement. These challenges include developing strategies to minimise risk, including enhancing the security of cards for consumers, reducing loss for merchants and financial institutions, and enhancing intelligence sharing between industry and law enforcement. Case studies concerning the activities of transnational criminal networks responsible for card fraud show increasing levels of sophistication as well as the magnitude of financial loss. Correspondingly, the evidence suggests wide-ranging gaps in the design and implementation of equally sophisticated responses that can produce risk reduction and prevention. This paper draws on the problem-oriented policing, situ­ational crime prevention and third-party policing theoretical approaches to propose a strengthened preventative response to the problem.