82 percent of organizations reported payment fraud incidents in 2018

An AFP research has revealed that a record 82% of organizations reported payment fraud incidents in 2018.

According to the 2019 AFP Payments Fraud & Control Survey underwritten by JP Morgan, large organisations were particularly vulnerable to payments fraud, as businesses with revenue greater than USD 1 billion reported a jump of seven percentage points year-over-year to 87%.

Organizations with revenue less than USD 1 billion experienced fewer fraud attempts in 2018, down four percentage points to 69% from 73%.

Business Email Compromise (BEC) also set a record. Eighty percent of companies reported BEC fraud last year, up from 77% in 2017. More than half (54%) of organizations reported financial losses as a result of BEC, the first time since AFP began tracking this data that this number climbed above the 50% mark. More than three-fourths of companies are responding by adopting stronger internal controls that prohibit payment initiation based on emails or other, less secure messaging systems.

Other highlights of the 2019 AFP Payments Fraud & Control Survey include:

• 70% of organizations report being exposed to check fraud, a slight decrease from 2017;
• 43% of organizations experienced direct financial loss as a result of payments fraud;
• 33% of organizations reported ACH debit fraud — up from 28% the previous year;
• 20% of organizations reported ACH credit fraud — up from 13% the previous year.