Ireland Payment Fraud Value Rises 27% to €179 Million in 2025, Central Bank Data Shows
The Central Bank of Ireland said the value of fraudulent payments reported by Irish-resident payment service providers rose 27.2% in 2025 to €179.04 million, from €140.80 million a year earlier, even as the number of fraudulent transactions increased by only 0.3%.
The annual Payment Fraud Statistics, published on 4 September 2026, cover banks, credit unions, payment institutions, e-money institutions and payment system operators resident in Ireland. The Central Bank said fraud affected about one in every 10,000 payment transactions.
Authorised push payment fraud becomes a larger share of losses
Fraud in which a payer is manipulated into authorising a payment accounted for €74.86 million, or 45.0% of total fraud by value, up from 35.2% in 2024. In credit transfers, this form of fraud represented 67.2% of fraudulent value, compared with 45.6% a year earlier.
The largest fraud category overall remained the issuance of payment orders by a fraudster, which totalled €91.32 million and represented 54.9% of fraud by value.
Cross-border payments dominate fraud value
Cross-border transactions accounted for 69.8% of total fraudulent payment value, or €124.89 million, up from a 63.5% share in 2024. Fraudulent payments sent outside the European Economic Area reached €65.88 million, a 54.8% increase, while fraudulent payments within the EEA rose 26.1% to €59.01 million.
By payment type, fraudulent credit transfers increased 23.3% to €83.34 million. Card fraud rose 18.6% to €51.01 million, direct debit fraud increased 28.0% to €12.21 million, and fraudulent e-money payments climbed 57.7% to €40.42 million. Money-remittance fraud fell 6.1% to €3.31 million.
Online transactions accounted for 91.5% of fraudulent payment value in 2025, or €163.8 million. The Central Bank also reported that 67.4% of the €165.36 million in fraudulent electronic payments by value had been authenticated using Strong Customer Authentication, reflecting the growing importance of fraud scenarios in which customers themselves are manipulated into approving transactions.
Consumers bore most fraud losses
Total payment-fraud losses reached €112.7 million in 2025, up 45.6% from €77.4 million in 2024. Payment service users bore €84.0 million, or 74.6% of those losses, while payment service providers bore €24.9 million, or 22.2%.
The data also show a sharp increase in average fraud values. Credit-transfer fraud averaged €2,412 per transaction, while e-money fraud averaged €1,427, more than double the €692 recorded in 2024.
For AML, fraud and payments teams, the figures reinforce the need to treat authorised-payment fraud and cross-border fund flows as control issues that extend beyond conventional credential theft. The rise in SCA-authenticated fraud also shows why authentication alone cannot substitute for behavioural monitoring and transaction-risk controls.
