The total value of payment fraud in Cyprus rose 16% to almost €3.7 million in the second half of 2025, even as the number of incidents fell by 5%, according to a statistical report published on Tuesday by the Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC).
Around 14,000 fraud incidents were recorded in total over the period, the CBC said. It noted that payment fraud in Cyprus remained relatively low overall, with fraud rates for most payment instruments below the euro area average.
Cyprus recorded the highest average transaction value linked to fraud incidents among euro area countries for credit transfers.
Each fraudulent credit transfer in Cyprus was worth €6,300 on average, compared with €1,800 across the euro area, and higher even than the average value of credit transfers generally in Cyprus, which stood at €4,500.
As the CBC put it, this means “even a limited number of fraud incidents can be associated with significant financial losses.”
Credit transfers accounted for €2 million, or 56%, of the total value of fraud incidents in Cyprus, while card payments followed with €1.6 million, or 43%. By number of incidents, however, card payments made up 93% of the total, at around 13,000 cases.
Consumers and businesses have borne around 95% of fraud losses on credit transfers, the CBC said, while for card payments and e-money, most losses fall on other parties involved.
Most card fraud happens online
The CBC found that card-present transactions at points of sale make up 70% of card transactions in Cyprus, but accounted for just 4% of fraud incidents. Online payments, by contrast, make up only 30% of card transactions but accounted for 96% of fraud incidents and 94% of the total value of card fraud.
The fraud rate for credit card payments was also around 1.5 times higher than for debit cards, both by number and value of incidents.
For credit transfers, the dominant form of fraud was “manipulation of the payer by the fraudster,” in which an account holder is deceived into transferring money to an account controlled by the fraudster. This accounted for 70% of credit transfer fraud incidents, with the remaining 30% involving unauthorised payment transactions.
Instant credit transfers showed higher fraud rates than regular transfers, the CBC said. In Cyprus, the fraud rate for instant transfers, by value, was on average around double that of regular transfers. The average transaction value linked to instant credit transfer fraud was €3,400, more than double the average value of instant transfers generally, which stood at €1,500.
Verification of Payee, mandatory for euro area payment service providers since October 2025, is expected to help curb fraud in electronic credit transfers, though its effect is not yet reflected in the report’s data.
While most transactions in Cyprus are domestic payments, most fraud incidents involve cross-border transactions, the CBC added.
Strong Customer Authentication is linked to significantly lower fraud rates, the CBC also said. In Cyprus, the fraud rate for card payments without it was almost four times higher by number and almost three times higher by value than for transactions where it was applied.
Across the euro area, the total value of fraud incidents rose 8% to €1.9 billion in the second half of 2025, while the number of incidents remained largely unchanged at around 9 million.
The CBC concluded that despite Cyprus’s relatively low fraud levels, the concentration of incidents in online and cross-border transactions, as well as in high-value credit transfers, “makes continuous strengthening of prevention measures and risk management mechanisms necessary.”
