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UK card fraud losses rose 2% in 2025, FICO reported, a far smaller increase than in several other European countries.
Its European Fraud Map showed UK card fraud losses reached £594.9 million in 2025, up from £592.5 million in 2024. That kept the UK below its 2019 peak of £620.6 million, while total card fraud losses across Europe hit a record €1.69 billion.
Several markets recorded much sharper increases, with fraud losses rising by 15% or more year on year in Norway, Sweden, Poland, Hungary and Greece. The figures highlight a widening gap between the UK and some of its European peers.
The UK data shows a mixed pattern. Card-not-present fraud, covering remote payments that do not use a physical card, rose from £412.5 million to £423.5 million. At the same time, identity fraud losses fell 12% to £54 million from £61.5 million, while losses from lost or stolen cards declined to £109.8 million from £111.7 million.
Data for the European study came from Euromonitor International, while UK figures were provided by UK Finance. FICO said the number of fraud cases in Britain has risen alongside the number of cards in circulation.
Social engineering
A key concern for banks is social engineering, in which criminals manipulate customers into helping to authorise fraudulent activity. In the UK, this has increasingly involved persuading people to disclose one-time passwords, which can then be used to register cards on fraudsters' devices or digital wallets.
Sarah Cassidy, Senior Fraud Consultant at FICO in EMEA, said this has become a major pressure point for the sector.
"The biggest threat to the UK financial services ecosystem is the relentless use of social engineering tactics, requiring multiple strategies to thwart fraudsters across the full customer journey," said Sarah Cassidy, Senior Fraud Consultant at FICO in EMEA.
She added: "In particular, banks are seeing a concerning trend of consumers being tricked into divulging one-time passwords, which allows fraudsters to connect the cards to their own devices and e-wallets. Once this 'authentic' token is created, the fraudster can spend large amounts unchecked."
The trend shows how fraud is shifting away from card theft and cloned cards towards attacks that exploit consumer trust and gaps in verification processes. It also creates problems for banks because transactions may appear legitimate once a valid digital token has been set up.
UK trends
The report suggests the UK has kept losses broadly steady even as fraud techniques become harder to detect. The decline in identity fraud is notable because it came during a period when artificial intelligence tools have made it easier to create more convincing synthetic identities.
Losses linked to stolen cards also fell slightly, but FICO noted that the risk remains significant as changes to contactless rules could allow thieves to spend more before a card is blocked by a PIN check. Lower annual losses in that category therefore do not remove pressure on issuers and banks to tighten controls.
Cassidy said the UK had performed better than many of its neighbours, though she cautioned that the underlying number of incidents is still rising.
"While social engineering is a key concern across Europe, the UK has demonstrated its resilience against such attacks and has also made good strides in tackling ID fraud," Cassidy said.
She added: "However, while fraud losses are under control for now, cases are still on the rise, and it is imperative that banks act. They must strengthen their fraud prevention across the full customer journey to successfully fight sophisticated fraud. AI tools, comprehensive customer profiling and monitoring of all transactional and non-transactional events will allow banks to detect patterns, pick up on warning signs and stop fraud and scams before losses occur."
FICO said some UK banks are already using its Scam Signal product, which combines telephony, customer and payment data in real time to identify signs of authorised push payment scams and other social engineering attempts. It also pointed to its wider fraud products, including Falcon Fraud Manager and Enterprise Fraud Solution.
The broader picture from the study is that Europe's fraud losses continue to rise even where individual markets have contained some categories. In the UK, card-not-present fraud accounted for more than £423 million of the £594.9 million total, showing that online and remote transactions remain the biggest source of loss.