As seen in other jurisdictions that have introduced chip technology, skimming fraud is dropping significantly in Australia as financial institutions and merchants progressively roll out chip.

Figures released by the Australian Payments Clearing Association (Apca) show that the overall skimming fraud on Australian-issued credit, debit and charge cards dropped to $34.5 million - down 24%. Within this total, skimming fraud on cards used in Australia dropped by 38% to $12.2m million, while the overseas total slipped 13% to $22.3 million. Skimming fraud perpetrated in Australia on scheme cards issued overseas also fell, down 47% to $34.6 million.

The figures show that fraudsters are increasingly targeting payments methods that do not use chip and PIN, as CNP fraud increased by 25% to $102.6 million and now accounts for 52% of all frauds.

Apca has called for better implementation of the PCI data security standard to limit merchant breaches, and wider uptake of the 3D Secure standard implemented by international card schemes Visa and MasterCard.