Sharp rise in credit-card fraud tipped
CREDIT-CARD frauds in Thailand are projected to rise significantly in the coming years along with the growing popularity of e-commerce, whose sales turnover is estimated to top Bt1 trillion next year, according to a top executive of FICO (Thailand).
Yuttapong Sakulwilaingam, country manager of US-based FICO, which specialises in credit-risk management software, said there were now more than 20 million credit cards in Thailand, issued by commercial banks and non-bank financial institutes.
The last quarter saw more than 250,000 cards added, making Thailand one of the leading destinations in the Asia-Pacific region for card frauds.
Damages caused by credit-card frauds in the region are estimated to be around US$360 million to $420 million (Bt12.3 billion to Bt14.3 billion) per year, growing annually at 20 per cent.
For Web-based and online transactions via mobile and other devices, credit cards are often used to pay for goods and services with cardholders not present (CNP) before the sellers. These CNP transactions are increasing rapidly, as Thailand promotes the “digital economy” and e-commerce, with 2014 sales estimated to be more than Bt740 billion.
“To prevent fraud, we currently use a one-time password [OTP] with a six- or eight-digit code sent by SMS to the cardholder’s mobile device so that he or she can confirm the transaction to be genuine.
“For example, you may get this OTP code when you pay your utility bill via the mobile phone.
“Second, your cards can be skimmed by criminals when used at an ATM. In such a case, your personal data is stolen to create a fake card, which will then be used to withdraw cash or buy merchandise. With FICO’s predictive analytics, we’re able to alert the cardholders by SMS when there are irregular card uses.
“For example, when your card is used in Chiang Mai on a weekday, an SMS alert will be sent, since your profile is generally to use the card in Bangkok and on weekends. Or when the card is used to pay for pricey stuff, it would be stopped automatically until there is a reconfirmation from the cardholder,” Yuttapong said.
“We can also monitor card use based on sales locations using the GPS [Global Positioning System] technology.
“More recently, the widespread use of social media such as Facebook and Line has led to abuses of personal data shared among friends, so you must be careful when providing mobile-phone numbers, your birth date or card-expiry date, as they could be accessed by criminals,” Yuttapong added.
“Last but not least is flishing phishing, used by criminal networks to steal personal data by luring you to unscrupulous websites and then using spyware to steal the data,” he said.
FICO, whose worldwide sales turnover is projected to be around $1 billion this year, is a leader in credit-scoring models used by major credit-card and personal-loan companies.
In the Thai market, Bank of Ayudhya, Siam Commercial Bank, Kasikornbank and Krung Thai Card are among the leading card issuers and providers of consumer loans. To take advantage of the boom in e-commerce, they need to ensure cardholders are adequately protected against frauds.
Yuttapong said a recent customer survey showed that one-third of cardholders would stop using credit cards if they were not sure of security, so issuing banks needed to adopt sophisticated anti-fraud software.
