Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein said:
"Without secure payment systems, you cannot have a modern economy or a functioning Internal Market. In the EU, payment fraud is exceeding €1 billion annually. Fraudsters come up with new scams and the payment industry needs to stay one step ahead. That means vigilance and reinforced cooperation within and beyond the EU."
The new Fraud Prevention Action Plan (FPAP) will fight payment fraud between now and 2007, with the ultimate aim of making cross-border payments as convenient, quick and secure as domestic ones.
Priorities in the new FPAP are the security of payment products and systems, co-operation between public authorities and the private sector, the integration of new Member States in the EU fraud prevention framework and closer ties with non-EU countries. It points to emerging threats and urges the rapid EU-wide completion of the changeover to more secure chip cards.
As part of the FPAP, the Commission says it will clarify EU data protection law related to fraud prevention, to allow more effective cross-border information exchanges and, if necessary, the Commission will propose new legislation.
The Commission's is already encouraging the payment industry to set up a single phone number in the EU for reporting lost and stolen cards. It says it will also assess the merits of establishing an EU single contact point on identity theft, for citizens and businesses, and promote the creation of a database, for public authorities and the private sector, of original and counterfeit identity documents.