Brussels, 19/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Monday, the European Commission adopted an action plan to tackle payment card fraud and the counterfeiting of payment means other than cash, which mainly consists in the organisation of conferences. "Such fraud currently amounts to an estimated EUR 600 million a year in the European Union. Last year fraud grew by approximately 50%", stressed the Commissioner in his communication. Fraud is said to have "mainly concerned payments made by phone or across the Internet" and would be mainly carried out by criminal organisations. The action plan will run for three years. It completes the framework decision on the prevention of fraud and counterfeiting of payment means other than cash, that the Commission hopes will be adopted by the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 15 and 16 March.
"Tackling the problem is principally the responsibility of the payment systems industry", and the greatest improvements are of a technical kind, stresses the Commission in its press release. It then presented an action plan that it hopes to implement over the next three years: - to encourage technological improvements, the Commission plans to carry out a study on certain aspects of product security and to organise "awareness campaigns", including the organisation of a forum on the security of products and of payment systems; - the Commission is expected to define, with the national authorities responsible for data protection, guidelines on the limits and conditions for the exchanges in information between banks and Member states, at national and European level; - the Commission will organise training programmes, including an "high level conference" with police officers and magistrates, as well as meetings of experts; - The Commission would like a single telephone number to be introduced in the EU to signal the loss or theft of credit cards. It should also organise a meeting with consumer associations, "so as to examine the means of devising the promoting consumer awareness to the risks and the best ways of avoiding them"; - a seminar will be organised for the authorities of the candidate countries.