73% of US companies experienced payments fraud in 2015

Nearly three quarters of all American businesses were targeted for payments fraud in 2015, according to new research by the Association for Financial Professionals.

73% of all US companies have experienced a payments fraud attack in 2015. That matches the largest percentage since 2009, and was up from 62% in 2014.

Yet even without facing a direct substantial financial loss, payments fraud costs American organizations resources in the form of security, cyber insurance and training. BEC scams, short for business e-mail compromise, are an increasingly common type of fraud which greatly impacts wire fraud.

In 2015, 64% of organizations were exposed to BEC scams. Though checks continue to be the payment method most targeted by fraudsters, in 2015, 48% of organizations were exposed to wire fraud, an increase from 27% in 2014 and 14% in 2013.

Though treasury and finance professionals are pinning their hopes on EMV chip cards to alleviate at least some payments fraud, 90% believe that criminals will shift their focus to other payment methods if EMV chip cards are successful in mitigating fraud, an increase of 10 percentage points from 2014.