The Association for Payment Clearing Services (APACS) has reported that the amount of fraud committed on UK plastic cards has fallen for the first time in eight years, which it attributes mainly to a clamp-down on fraud committed abroad.

The figures for fraud on UK-based transactions has seen a very slight increase, and fraud on lost and stolen cards and counterfeit fraud accounted for more than
half of all plastic card fraud. However, the organisation expects to see a drop when the new chip and PIN system is introduced.