Fraud that occurs when a payment card is not present during a transaction - such as when a payment is made online or over the telephone - has been the biggest and fastest growing source of payment fraud in Australia for some years. However, last year the tide turned and card-not-present fraud fell.The Australian Payments Clearing Association reported yesterday that, despite a 20 per cent increase in online spending, card-not-present fraud fell eight per cent, to A$183 million.APCA's chief executive, Chris Hamilton, said: "The drop in CNP fraud can largely be attributed to an increase in the use of authentication tools such as MasterCard's SecureCode and Verified by Visa."The overall loss from cheque and payment card fraud was $270.5 million in the 12 months to December - down from $285.1 million in the 12 months to June last year, and $301.6 million in the 12 months to December 2011.The improvement came from a better performance by scheme credit, debit and charge cards. Scheme cards have been the source of the bulk of losses in recent years (because they are used for CNP payments), rising from $149.2 million in 2009 to a peak of $279.1 million in 2011. Last year, the figure fell to $244.9 million.Proprietary debit-card losses rose from $13.7 million, in 2011, to $15.7 million last year.Losses from cheque fraud rose from $8.8 million, in 2011, to $$9.7 million last year.APCA said there was a 53 per cent reduction in counterfeit and skimming fraud. The $27.6 million of losses from this type of fraud was the lowest since 2006.Hamilton said: "Chip card technology and extensive use of PINs is giving us a real chance to stamp out card skimming."Hamilton warned that there was an increase in fraud using lost and stolen cards, however."As fraud detection tools become more sophisticated, criminals tend to revert to theft or deceiving consumers to hand over their cards or PINS," he said.