Over the past 20 years, financial institutions, governments, insurers and retailers have seen an explosion in the amount and types of fraud perpetrated against them.

In the United Kingdom alone, card-fraud losses in 2006 totaled €620.6 million (£428 million) and while this total represented a reduction of 3 percent over 2004 and a decrease of nearly €116 million (£80 million) over the past two years, it was still a considerable loss to business. Of particular concern is the evolution of types of fraud to circumvent the effectiveness of PIN-based domestic transactions. This has led to a 43 percent increase in fraud committed on UK cards abroad, where perpetrators take advantage of non-PIN environments.