Bank of France reports EUR 585 million in cashless payment fraud in first half of 2024 with first decline in manipulation fraud

The Bank of France, through its Observatory for the Security of Payment Means, published first-half 2024 statistics on payment usage and fraud in France, showing a continued shift towards innovative cashless payments and a slight reduction in total fraud value to EUR 585 million, down 1% year on year. The update also notes a first decline in manipulation fraud since the introduction of strong authentication. Cashless transactions rose 4.5% by volume, driven by instant credit transfers, up 70% and now 9.3% of transfers, and mobile contactless payments, up 61% to 13.5% of point-of-sale card payments, while cheque usage fell 12.4% to 2.4% of cashless operations. Manipulation fraud, affecting online card payments and online-banking transfers, decreased 2.0% and accounted for 30.6% of total fraud, while cheque fraud fell 20.4% alongside improved detection of fraudulent deposits, with further progress expected in cheque book delivery and stop-payment accessibility. The instant credit transfer fraud rate remained at 0.040%, below the card fraud rate of 0.054%, and the telecom-led Number Authentication Mechanism (MAN) was extended in January 2025 to most calls to and from mobile numbers to help curb spoofing. The Observatory expects instant credit transfer usage to expand in 2025 following the European instant payments regulation’s requirement, effective since 9 January 2025, to align fees with standard credit transfers. It called on payment providers to further strengthen instant payment fraud controls, including implementing beneficiary verification checks aligning bank details with beneficiary identity by October 2025.