The number of fraudulent payments reached €160m last year with so-called e-money fraud suffering the sharpest rise, a study by the Central Bank of Ireland shows.
The biggest losses last year were credit transfers, or bank payments, followed by card payments, which made up a combined €113m. Neither saw significant increase, however, but fraudulent e-money payments rose from €3.3m in 2023 to €25.6m last year.
E-money is the digital form of cash stored electronically, which can also be referred to as digital or electronic wallets.
Legitimate and reputable firms such as Stripe, Facebook and Booking.com come under the umbrella of providing such services, according to the Central Bank of Ireland’s ‘E-Money Firms List.’
The Payment Fraud Statistic study is based on records provided by Irish resident payment service providers in conjunction with the Central Bank.
The total volume of fraudulent payments rose by 40.7pc from 2023.
There were a staggering 815,000 occurrences of fraud recorded last year.
When broken down to individual transactions, the amount of money fraudsters were obtaining through e-money transactions was alarming.
E-money had an average value of fraud at €692 in 2024, a notable spike from €142 a year earlier.
The average size of bogus and misdirected direct debits also increased to €107 last year.
Hackers are evolving their skills in line with the pace of technological advances including artificial intelligence (AI), according to Michael Kavanagh the CEO of the Compliance Institute, a professional body for compliance professionals that advises on regulatory and business ethics.
“Hackers and cybercriminals are continuously improving their practices, constantly finding new ways of stealing material and outsmarting even the most advanced of security systems,” he said.
“The growing sophistication of fraudsters means scams have become harder to spot, and therefore easier to fall for.”
Online payments made up 77pc of the fraudulent value last year, worth €124m, the data shows.
Mr Kavanagh said advances in AI were playing a role.
“AI, a technology which has developed at a rapid pace in recent years, is now being increasingly used by scammers in their attempts to defraud people.”
Additionally, the study found that the manipulation of funds when transferring money referred to as fraudulent money remittances more than doubled from €8m to €20m last year.