A look into CNP Fraud and its prevention

The thesis is a look into payment card fraud in Finland and Europe. The focus is especially on card-not-present (CNP) frauds, which occur in scenarios when merchants are processing payments on e-commerce websites, where payment card is not physically present.\n\nThe goal of the thesis is to provide a comprehensive insight into card fraud and learn about its prevention services that are provided by banks to cardholders. \n\nTo understand the topic, the theory part includes a desktop study. It includes the following subjects: basics of payment card industry, financial and internet crime, CNP fraud process and techniques. Additionally, the study presents statistics on card fraud in Europe and in Finland to understand the scope of card fraud in the area and see the trends. When the basic topics are studied, the thesis discusses technologies that are available in the industry to prevent card fraud. The theoretical study uses reliable secondary data sources such as theoretical works, reports from the card and card fraud prevention industry found on trustworthy webpages.\n\nThe research part of the thesis investigates card fraud prevention services that are available in three selected leading banks, which operate in the territory of Finland: OP bank, Nordea bank and Danske bank. The data is collected from the official websites of the selected banks and reviewed. Furthermore, card fraud prevention services are analysed and compared to fraud mitigation methods that have been studied in the theoretical framework. As a result, the research provides a thorough review of card fraud prevention services and suggests the analysed banks to adopt or develop certain services to improve security of cardholders’ assets.