SECURITY: Plastic card fraud perpetrated on tourists in Ireland recently was "not on the radar screen" in the international plastic card fraud scene, Mr Peter Warner, director of corporate security with Europay, MasterCard's European partner, said yesterday.

At a Europay International conference in Dublin, Mr Warner said card fraud had increased as the use of cards had grown. "For every $100 we turn over, eight cents is lost in fraud, as compared with $3-$5 in cardholder bad debt."

The majority of cards issued in Europe were issued in Britain and half of all fraud took place there.

While the company was legally prevented from giving specific figures for individual countries, he said Ireland was "close to the UK and suffering similar activities". But co-operation between Irish banks in terms of fraud management was excellent, he added.

Europay was working with Interpol and next week would join in organising an international counterfeit card conference. "We're not a police agency as such but we have an awful lot of information about the activities of fraudsters and on frauds."

Gambling sites had overtaken adult entertainment as the biggest area of fraud on the Internet, with individuals denying taking part - "friendly fraud or family fraud or whatever you like to call it", he said.

According to figures produced by the Association for Payment Clearance Services in Britain, total plastic card fraud in 2001 amounted to some £436 million sterling - £160 million in counterfeit fraud, almost £96 million through fraudulent use of card details, £114 million on lost or stolen cards, £33 million on cards lost in the mail, more than £21 million on ATMs and £12 million through identity theft.

"Every minute of every day, an identity is stolen," Mr Joel Lisker, senior vice-president, security and risk management of MasterCard International, reported. Mr Lisker said organised criminals were looking for money for other criminal activities.