Mixed news on fraud in Brazil

During an October seminar about Electronic Crimes and Methods of Protection, the Federation of Goods, Services, and Tourism of the State of São Paulo (Fecomercio-SP) shared grim news on the state of electronic fraud in Brazil.

A survey by the agency, which consists of retailers and service companies in the state of São Paulo, found that 300,000 families had at least one member that's fallen victim to an electronic offense. Some 14% of those surveyed had seen fraudulent charges on their credit cards, nearly 13% experienced the fraudulent use of personal data, and roughly 7% were affected by card cloning. These findings echo those from a Brazilian Banks Federation survey, which as I discussed in my last post, revealed that electronic fraud losses are on the rise.

But it's not all bad news on the fraud front in Brazil. Overall losses from credit card fraud are declining, even though the use of credit cards is growing. Card fraud losses in Brazil decreased from R$ 301 million (US$ 177 million) a year in 2005 to R$ 213 million (US$ 125 million) in 2010. During the same time, the number of financial cards more than doubled, rising from 360.6 million to 723.3 million.

This welcome news is thanks to investments by Brazilian financial institutions in technology to detect and prevent fraud. FICO announced last week that an estimated 41 percent of Brazil-issued credit cards are now protected by our FICO™ Falcon® Fraud Manager solution—that equals 72.4 million cards. With Brazil being one of the fastest-growing credit card markets in the world, it’s good to see fraud protection has become a priority.