Fewer incidents, but greater losses, this is the picture that emerges for payment fraud in Cyprus, with the latest data from the Central Bank sounding the alarm, especially regarding money transfers.
In the second half of 2025, approximately 14,000 incidents of payment fraud were recorded, a number reduced by 5% compared to the corresponding period of 2024. At the same time, however, the total value of the fraud increased by 16%, reaching almost €3.7 million. In other words, the scammers struck fewer times, but their hits cost more. The overall picture, however, is not only negative. Cyprus remains below the Eurozone average in fraud rates for most means of payment. The major exception is credit transfers in terms of value. There, the country has a slightly higher fraud rate than the Eurozone and, above all, stands out for the amount of amounts lost in each successful hit.
Cyprus recorded the highest average value of fraudulent transactions among all Eurozone countries: each incident of credit transfer fraud corresponded, on average, to €6,300. This amount is more than three times the Eurozone average, which stands at €1,800. It is, in fact, higher than the average value of a normal credit transfer in Cyprus, which stands at €4,500.
Card payments continue to be the main field of fraud in a number of incidents. In the second half of 2025, about 13,000 cases - 93% of the total - involved cards. In contrast, the volume of fraud incidents in other means of payment remained at significantly lower levels, totalling around a thousand incidents.
Similarly, in the euro area, card payments accounted for 79% of the total volume of fraud incidents for the second half of 2025. The higher share of card payment fraud in Cyprus (93%), compared to the euro area (79%), reflects the higher penetration and use of payment cards in Cyprus, as also highlighted in a previous CBC analysis.
The great damage, however, came from elsewhere. The transfers cost around €2 million, representing 56% of the total value of the fraud. The cards followed with losses of €1.6 million. or 43% of the total. The difference is characteristic: card frauds are much more numerous, but money transfer scams are those that, as a rule, "hit" larger amounts.
According to central bank data, in the euro area, fraud in payments involving credit transfers accounted for 65% of the total value of fraud incidents in the second half of 2025, while card payments accounted for 28% of the total value. Evidence shows that credit transfers make a disproportionate contribution to the overall value of fraud incidents in relation to their incidence, both in Cyprus and in the euro area.
Even more worrying is who ultimately pays the damage. In credit transfers, the losses from fraud are mainly borne by the payment service users themselves - i.e. citizens and businesses. This is largely linked to so-called payer manipulation scams: cases in which the perpetrator manages to deceive the victim into giving the order for the transfer of money himself. This is the most common form of credit transfer fraud, which shows that technological security alone is not enough when the fraudster manages to convince the user himself to carry out the transaction.
