New data from FICO has revealed that UK banks achieved the largest reduction in card fraud losses in 2019 compared to other countries across Europe.

That’s according to the updated FICO European Fraud Map, which discovered that UK banks have reduced fraud losses by £52m since 2018.

In contrast, more than half of the 18 European countries included in the data set saw increases in card fraud losses in 2019, with France and Italy seeing the largest increases (€8m and €6m respectively) when taking into account associated values.

However, the FICO European Fraud Map did record a 2% reduction in fraud losses across all 18 of the European countries last year.

FICO partners with the majority of banks in Europe to support their fraud prevention activities,.

“Following a frustrating increase in 2018 – largely caused by an explosion of data compromise ‘bust out’ events – much of Europe has once again turned the tide on fraudsters, achieving a combined 2% overall reduction,” said Toby Carlin, director of fraud consulting in EMEA at FICO. “British consumers should be reassured that the UK achieved the largest single reduction in fraud at 8%. This is a testament to the anti-fraud activities and investments by UK banks, which reduced fraud losses in 2019 by £52 million – that’s a million pounds every week.”

Carlin added that 2020 has been a challenging environment for all, with COVID-19 having significant impacts on the transaction mix and related threats.

“This has exposed many frameworks that were already pressured, with fraudsters now attempting to make up for lost time with increased volume and ferocity of their attacks. While our Fraud Map focuses on plastics fraud and, in particular, card-not-present fraud, this is just part of the story. The biggest threat today comes from digital fraud and scams which continue to increase exponentially across all markets.”

Over half (56%) of UK businesses plan to increase their digital skills training budgets for staff next year, suggesting changes to working practices as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic will be sustained. This is according to a survey of 200 senior business decision makers in large and medium sized companies by IT services provider Transputec.

The study also found that more than half (53%) of businesses are aiming to grow their IT infrastructure budget next year, while 60% of decision makers are planning to expand the use of digital collaboration tools to enable staff to connect more effectively and improve their well-being.

A third (33%) said they want to recruit a chief digital officer to help facilitate these changes, and 41% are seeking to hire candidates with high levels of digital skills.

In addition, close to half (44%) of UK businesses want to accelerate remote working going forward in order to reduce costs, such as by downsizing office space. Almost half (49%) of those surveyed expect to see growth next year, indicating that many businesses have already adapted well to a remote working model.

Sonny Sehgal, CEO of Transputec, commented: “COVID-19 has already had a devastating impact on UK business, and we’re not out of the woods yet. Fortunately, cutting edge technology has facilitated a mass shift to remote and digital working, and as a result, many businesses have observed benefits of lower overheads and more streamlined and efficient operations through managed services.

“Therefore, we can expect flexible working to stay with us for the long-term, even after it is deemed safe to return to the office on a permanent basis. Therefore, businesses must continue to bolster digital initiatives and prioritize the use of cloud-enabled digital collaboration tools, for example, if they wish to remain buoyant.”

Despite the business benefits of home working, the surge in this practice during COVID-19 has highlighted a number of cybersecurity issues, including the use of insecure video communication platforms and risky security behaviors by remote staff.

The use of illegal stream-ripping services dramatically increased by 1390% in the period between 2016 and 2019, a study published by PRS for Music has found.

Stream-ripping services, which enable users to illegally create permanent offline copies of audio or video streams, are now “overshadowing all other illegal online music activity in the UK,” according to the research, which was conducted by online rights monitoring company INCOPRO.

Following analysis of data taken from INCORPRO’s Identify database, it was revealed that websites promoting these services now make up 80.2% of the 50 most popular music-infringing sites.

There was, however, a significant drop in the proportion of BitTorrent sites from the top 50, from 14 to six. This is likely due to greater geo-blocking and enforcement efforts across the wider music industry.

The legitimate service most frequently exploited by stream-ripping in this period remained YouTube, with 70 out of 100 services observed found to exclusively offering ‘YouTube ripping’. This is followed by Spotify, which has overtaken SoundCloud, while other heavily targeted licensed platforms included Deezer, Amazon Music and Tidal.

The research also noted that the main source of funding for stream-ripping services was advertising, with the biggest categories generic/other (52%), scams (34%) and malware/potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) (14%).

Simon Bourn, head of IP and litigation at PRS for Music, commented: “This report shows that music piracy is very much still alive and kicking, and that stream-ripping is now responsible for a mammoth proportion of the overall piracy problem. Streaming royalties now account for over 20% of our members’ income, and the popularity of this illegal activity has a severe and direct impact on the royalties we can collect for them from legitimate services. Each time a stream is ripped, the user is then listening to and consuming that rip outside of the licensed ecosystem.”

Andrea C. Martin, CEO at PRS for Music, highlighted the importance of protecting digital income streams in light of the COVID-19 crisis: “The prolonged absence of income from live performance means that revenues generated on legitimate digital platforms are more important than ever. While the report shows that our efforts are going in the right direction, it is equally clear that we must persist and continue to work closely with both government and the wider music industry to foster a secure digital environment for music creators and consumers alike.”