Earlier this year I did a blog entry identifying cyber crime among the top 10 business risks for 2007 and beyond. Greater technological complexity and more cross-border transactions make it online fraud harder to police.

Now electronic commerce and payment services provider First Data has released a study, detailed here in this press release, looking at the extent of the fraud problem. And the revelation that banks feel that they are fighting fraud with one arm tied behind their backs is a worrying trend.

According to the study, 96 percent of respondents believed that fraud was a global phenomenon, learned and passed from one part of the world to another. Online fraud, which offers the fraudster scale efficiencies and reduced personal risk, has emerged as a real problem across Western Europe. According to the study, 38 per cent of respondents reported an increase in phishing attacks.

The study also shows that banks struggle to fight this problem because of issues surrounding reputation and sharing info with competitors. Data protection legislation is seen as hindrance. Furthermore, banks also feel that bringing in new laws might be too restrictive and reduce flexibility.

Those sorts of issues create fertile territory for fraudsters and scam-meisters.