European Card Fraud - Denmark

Fraud Losses Plateau, Bucking the Wider European Trend

After several years of rising Card not Present (CNP) fraud driving Denmark's overall losses higher, culminating in last year's sharp increase, the trend has flattened. Denmark's total fraud losses were essentially unchanged in 2025 versus 2024, one of the flattest readings anywhere in Europe this year. 

This stabilisation stands out against the wider European picture, where several markets recorded substantial year-on-year growth. By contrast, Denmark's 0% change places it, alongside Spain, at the flattest end of the table, with most other Western European markets such as the Netherlands, France, Austria, Germany, and Italy also showing only modest single-digit growth (1-2%).

Taken together, this suggests that whatever pressures drove Denmark's CNP-led fraud increase in prior years may be easing, at least relative to the sharper growth now showing up in the Nordic region's other markets and parts of Eastern Europe. It's worth watching whether this reflects a genuine improvement in Denmark's fraud controls, such as Strong Customer Authentication and behavioural analytics maturing, or simply a temporary pause before losses resume climbing, as they did after the 2020-2021 dip. Given that CNP fraud remains, by a wide margin, the dominant category in Denmark's fraud mix, continued investment in real-time detection and scam-specific models for the online channel remains the priority even during a flat year.