ARLINGTON, Va.–Credit unions reported being alerted to potential breaches in members’ financial data an average of 189 times in 2016 – an increase over 2015 alerts for most respondents, according to the latest NAFCU Economic Monitor.
NAFCU reported that its survey found on average respondents estimate that merchant data breaches in 2016 cost each credit union approximately $362,000 in direct and indirect costs, including those expenses related to monitoring, reissuance, fraud investigation or losses, and insurance.
Credit union respondents also reported additional costs or impacts, such as increased customer service activity (83.3%) and reputational harm (55.6%).
The increase came about despite the fact that roughly 81.1% of debit cards and 98.2% of credit cards are now EMV-chip enabled, only 16% of respondents said they have noticed the incidence of fraud lessened since this standard went into effect, NAFCU found. “In fact, 91.7% of respondents to this survey reported increased costs related to data and cybersecurity over the last three years,” NAFCU reported.