European Card Fraud - Italy

Quiet Consistency Amid Continental Shifts

Total card fraud losses rose only modestly in 2025, up around 2% to €72.4M from €70.7M, one of the flattest year-on-year movements in Europe and firmly in line with growth in genuine payment volumes. Italy’s basis points remain steady at around 1.03, sitting comfortably in the lower-middle of the European table and reinforcing the picture of a market keeping fraud in proportion to its size and spend.

As elsewhere, Card not Present fraud is where the largest growth sits, though the increase remains contained, rising from €42.5M to €43.8M. ID Fraud continued its gradual rise from €13.1M to €13.6M — reflecting the pan-European trend fuelled by deepfake technology and digital identity forgery — while Counterfeit Cards (€8.5M) and Card Stolen or Lost (€5.5M) held broadly stable. The overall shape of Italy’s fraud mix therefore changed very little, which is itself a mark of effective and adapting defences.

Independent Italian data corroborates this controlled picture. The Bank of Italy’s Report on fraudulent payment transactions for the first half of 2025 showed the card fraud rate holding stable at €18 per €100,000 transacted (0.018% by value), with unauthorised transactions (data or instrument theft) remaining the predominant form of card fraud, and Strong Customer Authentication payments proving markedly safer than non-SCA ones. 

Notably, the report highlights that fraud risk is rising fastest not on cards but on e-money, especially prepaid cards, where the incidence climbed to €31 per €100,000 transacted (0.031%, up from 0.027%), and that e-commerce and cross-border transactions (particularly outside the EEA) carry materially higher risk than domestic, physical-POS activity. This mirrors the earlier EBA observation that Italy is a concern chiefly in the e-money space rather than in mainstream card fraud.