France has replaced the UK as Europe’s leading fraud hotspot and now accounts for 29 per cent of card fraud losses across the region.
Research released by FICO also shows that most countries experienced a rise in 2012

Yorkshire Building Society has entered into a five year managed service agreement with contact centre specialist Sabio
Welcome Real-time is working with Aimia to deploy its Welcome XLS solution for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Awards credit card loyalty scheme
Social investment outfit, eToro, has reached the landmark of 50 million trades by its users

It's now over a year since the legal requirement to record mobile communications to and from trading floors was introduced in the UK, and yet take-up has been sluggish
The year to 4 April 2013 saw Nationwide open over 365,000 new current accounts while 123,000 customers switched their main banking relationship, up 58 per cent on last year
The London Stock Exchange has hired John Mackay ‘Mack’ Gill as CEO of its tech subsidiary MillenniumIT
Awareness of contactless points and symbols amongst consumers has more than doubled in the last 12 months, although issues remain around security and trust
Commerzbank is to deploy Clear2Pay's Open Payment Framework (OPF) as a central platform for end-to-end XML processing
The Co-operative Bank has been addressing customers' contactless concerns on its Twitter feed

Atos has been awarded an outsourcing contract to deliver customer-facing and back office services to NS&I’s 25 million customers
Financial services institutions need to abandon the traditional, evolutionary approach towards IT if they are to rebuild damaged consumer trust
Visa Europe believes contactless usage has reached a critical point of adoption across Europe
Scott Thompson has been busying himself asking leading industry players for their take on key 2013 FS tech trends. Here, then, are 13 stand out predictions for the year ahead, taking in the likes of Big Data, the cloud, DDoS, BYOD, social media and m-payments
What, asks Glynn Davis, will the retail bank of the future look like and what chance new entrants seizing the day?
Liz Morrell looks at the state of play following changes to FSA regulations around mobile call recording, which came into effect in 2011
The FS sector was plagued by IT troubles throughout 2012 and a number of banks consequently found themselves under fire from the media, politicians and increasingly beleaguered customers. But, as Scott Thompson reports, there were also some bright spots this year
This is a critical time for the m-payments sector. Progress has been made, but, as Scott Thompson reports, the mobile dream could yet be derailed
The traditional world of stock markets and trading is colliding with social networks. Will this be a marriage made in heaven or a quick fling? Hannah Prevett investigates
Liz Morrell casts an eye over an intensifying cat and mouse game between financial services companies and cyber criminals
When it comes to mobile banking, the UK remains stuck in first gear. Marek Handzel reports on the long road ahead
Liz Morrell asks: what does it mean to the highly regulated banking world when millions of people are using Facebook etc to communicate, share, network and entertain? And who are the pioneers in this field?