Card-not-present fraud accounted for almost three-quarters of all card payment fraud last year, with the incidence of this type of fraud increasing by almost 20 per cent.The Australian Payments Clearing Association released its annual payments fraud report yesterday, revealing that overall card fraud rates increased from 43.6 cents for every $1000 spent in 2012 to 48.7 cents last year. When cheque payments are included, the fraud rate rose from 15 cents for every $1000 spent in 2012 to 16.9 cents last year.Fraudulent transactions were worth a total of $304 million last year - up from $261 million in 2012. The average value of fraudulent transactions was $197.The fraud rate as a percentage of the number of transactions rose from 0.022 per cent to 0.025 per cent.The majority of this increase was due to the growth in card-not-present fraud (when a consumer is not face to face with the retailer or service provider, such as when shopping online), which went from $183.1 million to $219.7 million. In 2008 card-not-present made up 45 per cent of card payment fraud; it has climbed to 72 per cent since then.One of main reasons for the growth is the expansion of online shopping activity, which has been growing at around 35 per cent year over the past four years. The majority of card-not-present fraud involved merchants based overseas.APCA's report said the industry had introduced effective measures to limit opportunities for card-not-present fraud, including online authentication tools, but these measures needed to be taken up by more merchants and consumers.Counterfeit and skimming fraud was steady at $37.2 million.In the past few years there has been an increase in lost and stolen fraud. Lost and stolen fraud was worth $34 million last year, compared with $27 million in 2012 and $20.2 million in 2011.APCA said this was probably due to criminals reverting to simple theft and deception to obtain cards because other frauds, such as skimming, had become more difficult to execute.APCA chief executive Chris Hamilton said the data could not shed any light on the recent debate between Victoria Police and banks about claims that contactless cards had prompted higher levels of theft.Losses through fraudulent applications fell from $3.5 million to $1.5 million.