CUNA Mutual is trying to get credit unions to standardize the way they describe card fraud loss, adopting a standard which measures fraud losses as a percentage of card sales rather than as a static dollar amount.

The card loss ratio adjusts automatically as the card portfolio grows and is used more and compares fraud losses to transaction dollars, Lovingood explained. The number also provides a good benchmark and enables peer comparisons, she added.

She used as an example a debit card portfolio of 55,000 cards with $10 million/month in total sales. With an average interchange of 1.4% that portfolio yields a gross interchange income of $140,000 per month. But if the card portfolio has 30 fraud cases per month, and if the losses average $1,000 each, the portfolio will have card fraud losses of $30,000 or 30 basis points per month, well above the industry average ($30,000 in card losses/$140,000 in card income).