NETHERLANDS Increase in Fraud YoY

Overall Fraud Increases, But CNP Is Not the Driving Force

The Netherlands is unique amongst the countries studied in that card not present or CNP fraud does not make up the majority of its losses – we can see that ‘Other’ fraud types are the primary loss drivers, and this could account for types such as account takeover or first-party fraud. The Netherlands has seen a steady decline in CNP losses since 2008, but it is evident that social engineering scams are rife across the region, with several impersonation scams making headlines.

Scammers impersonate high-profile organisations such as the National Police or the Dutch Supreme Court in order to persuade victims to part with personal information and details such as their citizen service (BSN) numbers. Whilst scamming a customer into making a real-time payment provides the ultimate ‘easy win’ for the fraudsters, many of these scams become visible in fraudulent applications for consumer finance or credit cards as the fraudsters successfully gain credit with a stolen identity. As noted in the commentary around the Austrian trends, it could be that we are seeing a similar story in the Netherlands, where missed fraudulent applications are ultimately being written off as first-party fraud on a credit card.