Fraudulent payments reported by payment service providers in Ireland totaled €179.04 million in 2025, up 27.2% from €140.80 million a year earlier, the Central Bank of Ireland said on September 4, 2026, in its annual payment fraud statistics. A less-quoted figure says more about the problem. Of the €165.36 million in fraud on electronic payments, 67.4%, or €111.53 million, involved transactions approved with strong customer authentication (SCA).
The number of fraudulent transactions barely moved, rising 0.3% to 510,840, while their value grew by more than a quarter. Measured against all payments processed, the fraud rate was 0.001% by value and 0.01% by volume, or about one transaction in 10,000.
The data are collected under the EU Payment Statistics Regulation, which took effect in 2022 and harmonized fraud reporting. Reporting firms are the banks, credit unions, payment institutions, e-money institutions, and payment service operators resident in Ireland.
| Payment method | 2025 value | Year-over-year change | Average value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credit transfer | €83.34M | +23.3% | €2,412 |
| Card | €51.01M | +18.6% | €119 |
| E-money | €40.42M | +57.7% | €1,427 |
| Direct debit | €12.21M | +28.0% | €126 |
| Check | €0.08M | -56.4% | €9,741 |
SCA verifies the payer, not the payee
Strong customer authentication, required under the EU’s second Payment Services Directive (PSD2), verifies the payer’s identity with at least two independent factors drawn from knowledge, possession, and inherence. It works where it was designed to work. SCA-authenticated payments show a fraud rate of 0.005% by volume, against 0.01% for payments without it.
But SCA checks who gives the payment order. It checks nothing about where the money goes or why. A payer talked into moving funds to an account controlled by someone else, by phone or by text, completes the authentication with their own factors. Under PSD2, the transaction is properly authenticated. In outcome, it is fraud. That gap between a verified identity and the destination of the funds explains the €111.53 million recorded on authenticated transactions.
Push payment scams climb to nearly half of all fraud
The Central Bank of Ireland sorts fraud into four types. Manipulation of payer fraud covers cases where account holders issue the payment order themselves after being deceived, what the industry calls authorized push payment (APP) fraud. It reached €74.86 million in 2025, or 45.0% of total fraud value, up from 35.2% a year earlier. In credit transfers alone, its share of fraud value jumped from 45.6% to 67.2%.
Issuance of a payment order by the fraudster remains the largest type by value, at €91.32 million and 54.9% of the total. The other two, modification of a payment order by the fraudster and unauthorized payment transactions, are small. Unauthorized transactions are concentrated in direct debits.
Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI), the Irish banking industry group, issued a consumer scam warning the same day based on a narrower measure: APP fraud on credit transfers only. By its count, that fraud almost doubled, up 95%, to almost €53 million in 2025.
Most fraudulent funds leave Ireland
Cross-border transactions accounted for 69.8% of fraud value, or €124.89 million, a rise of 6.3 percentage points from a year earlier. Domestic fraud came to €54.14 million, or 30.2% of the total. Of the cross-border fraud, €59.01 million went to the European Economic Area, up 26.1%, and €65.88 million went to accounts outside it, up 54.8%. The fastest-growing flow is also the one beyond the reach of the cooperation mechanisms set up under EU law, which shifts the problem to recovering the funds.
Payee checks arrived only at the end of 2025
The EU Instant Payments Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2024/886, added a check on the payee to EU law. Article 5c, which it inserts into Regulation (EU) No 260/2012, requires payment service providers to match the payee name entered by the payer against the actual holder of the account identified by the IBAN, and to warn the payer when the two differ. For providers in euro area member states, the requirement has applied since October 9, 2025. So the latest statistics describe a year that almost entirely predates the check. The Payment Services Regulation, still going through the EU legislative process, extends the same verification beyond the credit transfers already covered.
Colm Kincaid, the central bank’s deputy governor for consumer and investor protection, used the release to urge victims to report fraud. “We know from our research published earlier this year that 38% of fraud victims never report their experience to their financial service provider or any authority,” he said. “Fraud victims who report their experience are more likely to recover their money.”
Average losses vary widely by payment method, from €119 on cards to €2,412 on credit transfers. The average e-money fraud more than doubled in a year, from €692 to €1,427.