Banks, telcos, e-commerce players hurt the most by fraud: report (Amended)

Singapore

FINANCIAL services, telecommunications and e-commerce are the three industries that incur the most losses due to fraud and identification (ID) thefts in the region.

And the cost of fraud on businesses is projected to rise, driven by growth in the use of the Internet, mobile and e-commerce, as well as riskier Internet domains, said Experian, an FTSE 100 global information agency based in Dublin.

Nick Wilde, its Asia-Pacific head of fraud and ID, told The Business Times that credit card fraud was the key threat in Singapore and Australia, while credit application fraud poses a huge problem in Indonesia, and online banking fraud for Malaysia and China.

"There's something like 200 billion records that have been breached in the last four or five years. Those are only the ones we know about. (In) Australia, for instance, Parliament has just voted that they are going to create legislation to make breach reporting mandatory. Most countries in…