Credit card fraud cost consumers P506M in 2016 – bank exec

Credit card fraud in the Philippines jumped to P506,850,866.97 last year.

The total amount of money lost from fraudulent credit card transactions in the Philippines reached more than half a billion pesos last year, a banking executive revealed in a cybercrime conference on Wednesday.

On its fourth founding anniversary, the Philippine National Police (PNP)’s Anti-Cybercrime Group (ACG) hosted the two-day national cybercrime summit at the multipurpose center in Camp Crame.

Speaking about online consumers’ protection in the conference, Gerry Santos, Assistant Vice President of Philippine Bank of Communications (PBCom), disclosed that the amount of losses in fraudulent credit card transactions spiked to P506,850,866.97 as the number of online scam cases rose to over 500 in 2016.

Due to the rising numbers, Santos said members of the banking industry have forged an alliance with the PNP ACG and Information Security Officers Group (ISOG) to form an anti-fraud working group. The group currently has 32 members from different banking institutions.

“We may be competitors when it comes to marketing and sales but when it comes to fraud, no man is an island. We have to share information. That is the only way we can protect the bottom line,” he said.

In an ambush interview after his talk, Santos said that the amount of credit card losses could be even higher than P506 million if all banking fraud cases have been reported to government authorities.

Santos said there are limitations in reporting fraud cases to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

He said that there are at least 80,000 cases of fraudulent transactions online that have not been reported to police.

This was because banks are only mandated to report fraudulent transactions with amounts involving P20,000 and above, said Santos.

“So below P20,000, the bank may or may not report it. So yesterday (Tuesday), I proposed that the banks be allowed to report all fraudulent transactions regardless of the amount,” he said.

Santos then urged the public to be more vigilant when giving personal information online as these may be used by scammers.

He also suggested that all banking companies should educate their consumers on fraud awareness.