Bank fraud linked to transfers surges as mobile payments expand in Hungary
Data from the Magyar Nemzeti Bank show a notable increase in both the amount and frequency of bank-transfer fraud during the second quarter, driven mainly by corporate activity. At the same time, more than a third of all transfers were started via mobile banking apps, with the number of mobile transfers up by about 17% year-on-year. Instant payments also saw a rise, and the domestic instant-payment service qvik processed millions of transactions worth over a trillion forints.
The Magyar Nemzeti Bank reported that the second quarter saw a significant jump in transfer-related fraud, with both the total amount defrauded and the number of incidents climbing compared with the previous quarter, largely due to corporate sector activity. Consumer-to-consumer transfers recorded a lower fraud amount, while payment-card fraud incidents increased modestly without a change in total value. Mobile banking usage continued its upward trend, accounting for more than one-third of all transfers and growing by roughly 17% in both transaction count and value year-on-year.
Overall, nearly 131 million forints were moved in the quarter, totaling about 304 000 billion forints. Instant transfers rose by over six percent, and the home-grown qvik instant-payment platform completed 4.6 million payments worth 1 144 billion forints, most of which were request-based. Card purchases reached 588 million transactions, valued at 6.8 000 billion forints, up around ten percent, and a large new player entered the Hungarian payments market at the quarter’s end.
