A merchant’s guide to France and the United States
Fraud in France and the U.S.: What Changes at Checkout
A customer taps a card. An order goes through. For a merchant selling in France and the United States, that familiar moment can hide very different costs, fraud exposure and ways a payment can be challenged. The work starts before checkout: choosing payment methods customers recognize, understanding which network handles the sale, and deciding what happens when an order needs another look.
This guide connects the payment data to those decisions. Start with how customers pay, then look at where fraud concentrates and what the differences mean for routing, refunds and day-to-day operations. The goal is a payment setup you can explain, price and manage—not simply a longer list of accepted methods.
How customers pay
Cards lead. The rest of the checkout still matters.
Cards are central to both markets, but the headline alone can lead a merchant in the wrong direction. French shoppers still use cash frequently at physical checkouts. The U.S. picture includes substantial use of both credit and debit. Before adding or removing a payment option, consider where the sale happens and who is buying. An in-person retailer and a business collecting monthly bills are solving different payment problems, even when they serve customers in the same country.
These snapshots count payments, not money spent. France covers physical checkouts in 2024; the U.S. covers all consumer payment settings in 2025, including bills and payments to other people. Their different coverage prevents a direct country-to-country market-share comparison.
FRANCE · 2024 SURVEY · IN-PERSON PAYMENTS ONLY
France: cards narrowly lead cash
Out of 100 in-person payments, each bar shows how many used that method. Cards overtook cash in the 2024 survey for the first time.
Cash remains too common to disappear from a French shop’s payment planning. The lead for cards is a shift in habits, not the end of cash.
Mobile payments are a separate category in this survey. Other methods include cheques and bank transfers. Figures are rounded.
UNITED STATES · 2025 DATA · ALL PAYMENT SETTINGS
U.S.: credit and debit fill the month
The average consumer made about 47 payments a month. Each dot represents one payment; the counts include purchases, bills and payments to other people.
Credit and debit together account for about two-thirds of payments. The counts show frequency; they do not reveal purchase size or acceptance cost.
ACH means Automated Clearing House: bank-account payments rather than card payments. “Other” is the approximate remainder after subtracting the four listed methods from the rounded total.
Source: Federal Reserve, 2026 Diary report, figure 1 (2025 data).
Use these findings to frame a review of your own customers. Which methods complete sales, and which are requested but unavailable? Where do customers abandon the checkout? A method deserves its place when it serves a customer need and your team can support it. National averages can suggest what to investigate, but your sales channel, customer base and order values should shape the final decision.
France’s payment fraud · 2024, with a 2025 update
Frequent fraud and expensive fraud are different problems.
Cards dominate the number of reported French payment-fraud incidents, yet bank transfers and cheques account for a substantial share of the money involved. That distinction matters when deciding where to put staff time and controls. A busy queue of suspicious card orders can demand daily attention, while a less frequent payment to the wrong bank account can still be costly. The national data point to different problems; they do not tell an individual merchant which one will cause the next loss.
The first panel divides fraudulent transaction value by payment method. The second divides the number of fraud incidents. Both describe French payment fraud in 2024, including ATM withdrawals; neither shows the proportion of all payments that were fraudulent.
Money involved in reported fraud
€1.19B
Reported fraudulent transaction value across French payment methods, including ATM withdrawals.
Number of reported incidents
≈7.78M
Reported fraud incidents across the same payment methods. Figures are rounded.
A low rate can still involve a large amount of money
Bank transfers illustrate why the rate and the amount belong together. They move such a large value overall that fraud can represent a small fraction of the total while still involving hundreds of millions of euros. Cheques have the highest fraud rate among the methods in the table. For a merchant, the useful question is what controls fit the payment: screening an incoming card order, checking a cheque, or independently confirming a supplier’s changed bank details.
| Payment method · France, 2024 | Fraudulent value | Fraud events | Fraud per €10,000 processed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cards | €478.1M | 7.313M | €5.67 |
| Credit transfers | €351.0M | 132,298 | €0.11 |
| Cheques | €270.3M | 173,366 | €6.89 |
| Direct debits | €30.4M | 52,718 | €0.14 |
| ATM withdrawals | €40.8M | 108,013 | €3.06 |
The final column measures fraud against the value processed through each method. It is not the percentage of transactions affected, and it is not a merchant-loss estimate. These OSMP figures describe France’s broader payment system; the international card benchmark below uses a different reporting dataset.
The next report put transfers in the spotlight
In the first half of 2025, transfers accounted for 37% of reported fraud value, ahead of cards at 34%. This compares the composition of a half-year’s fraud with the full-year picture above; it does not compare equal periods of total losses. The practical lesson extends beyond checkout. A real employee or customer can authorize a payment after being deceived, so confirming the person’s identity does not establish that an invoice or new bank account is legitimate.
Putting card fraud in perspective
France sits below the U.S. benchmark, above the EEA average.
A merchant comparing markets needs a common scale. Expressing reported fraud against every 10,000 units of card volume helps put a large market and a smaller one in perspective. Here, France falls below the U.S. benchmark and above the European Economic Area (EEA) average. That is useful context, but it is not a controlled comparison of identical transactions. The figures cannot establish that moving a particular business to France would reduce its fraud by the same proportion.
The U.S. figure measures fraud losses in 2023; the France and EEA figures measure fraudulent transaction value reported by card issuers in 2024. Coverage also differs. A common denominator makes the scale readable; it does not make the sources interchangeable.
Reported fraud per 10,000 units of card volume
U.S. amounts are in dollars; France and EEA amounts are in euros. These are rates within each market, not currency-converted totals.
United States · 2023
$11.01
France · 2024
€5.70
EEA · 2024
€3.30
Treat the benchmark as a prompt for better questions. Does your payment provider report fraud for businesses with similar sales channels and order values? Can it separate domestic sales from cross-border orders? Those comparisons are closer to the decisions your business faces. The national average is a starting point; the payment being accepted is where a useful risk assessment begins.
Channel risk
Move the sale online, and the fraud picture changes.
A terminal sale, an internet order and a payment taken by phone may all use the same card network, but they do not present the same fraud picture. The French data show why a single set of checks deserves scrutiny when a merchant adds a new sales channel. Start by separating two questions: where the fraud total is concentrated, and how much fraud occurs relative to the value processed through each channel.
FRANCE · DOMESTIC CARD TRANSACTIONS · 2024
Remote payments carry a much bigger share of fraud than of card value.
Orange marks internet and other remote payments. Each bar divides a different €100 total: all domestic card transaction value in the first, and all domestic card fraud value in the second.
About €22 in remote payments · €78 in all other channels
About €65 in remote-payment fraud · €35 in all other channels
Remote payments carry a much larger share of fraud than of transaction value. This does not mean 65% of remote payments were fraudulent. ATM withdrawals are included among the other channels in both totals.
The rates below answer the second question: how much fraudulent value was reported for every €10,000 processed in each channel? They cover French-issued cards across domestic and cross-border transactions, a broader scope than the domestic-only graphic above.
Fraud for every €10,000 processed by channel
French-issued cards · domestic and cross-border transactions · 2024. MOTO means mail order / telephone order.
For online sales, discuss customer authentication and order screening together. An identity check and a review of the order answer different questions. For telephone orders, ask what checks staff should complete before accepting payment and when they should escalate an unusual request. Then monitor the results by channel: approvals, abandoned purchases, fraud and disputes. A lower fraud figure alone will not tell you whether the checkout is also turning away customers you intended to serve.
Channel and geography, together
A card’s country of issue tells only part of the story.
Cross-border transactions accounted for just 10.5% of French-issued card transaction value but 51.7% of its fraud value in 2024. That concentration becomes more useful when geography and channel are examined together. A French-issued card used at a domestic terminal belongs to a different category from that card used for a remote transaction outside the EEA. Grouping them under “French cards” would conceal differences that a merchant may need to investigate.
Each panel shows fraudulent value per €10,000 processed on French-issued cards in 2024, using the same €0–€74.20 scale. Orange represents remote payments, teal ATM withdrawals and slate physical point-of-sale (POS) payments. Geography follows the source’s transaction classification; it should not be inferred from a customer’s delivery address alone.
Domestic France
Fraudulent value per €10,000 processed · 2024
Other EEA
Fraudulent value per €10,000 processed · 2024
Outside EEA
Fraudulent value per €10,000 processed · 2024
Remote transactions outside the EEA have the highest reported rate in this comparison. That finding supports closer investigation, not an automatic rejection rule for every international order. Ask your provider how transaction location is classified and whether its reports can separate location, channel and authentication. Review the results alongside approval rates and completed sales, so your team can see what a tighter rule prevents and what it may interrupt.
The data also have a boundary: they describe French-issued cards. They do not establish the corresponding fraud rate for U.S.-issued cards used at the same merchants. Keep that distinction when deciding how much of the finding applies to your own customer base.
The network behind the payment
Ask which network will handle the French card payment.
Cartes Bancaires, known as CB, is France’s domestic card network. INSEE estimated its share at about 70% of French card-payment value in 2023. A French card can carry CB alongside Visa or Mastercard, so recognizing an international brand does not tell you everything about the route available for the payment. For a merchant choosing an acquirer, CB support belongs in the acceptance discussion from the outset.
Ask which networks your acquirer supports, how a route is selected, and how the choice appears in your fees and reporting. The customer also has a role in network selection where multiple accepted brands are available. Have the provider explain the arrangement for your actual checkout—online, in person or both—rather than assuming that support for one channel settles the question for every channel. Routing deserves an operational answer as well as a price quote.
Routing also matters in the United States. Regulation II protects merchants’ ability to direct eligible debit transactions over available networks, although the rules and network arrangements differ from CB. In either market, ask for an explanation of the choices your business can actually use. Do not assume that a familiar card logo means the same processing arrangement on both sides of the Atlantic.
What the payment costs—and what happens next
The processing rate is only part of the bill.
The processing quote is the beginning of the cost discussion. A payment can also create work through authentication failures, refund requests, disputes and reconciliation. Ask providers to price the transactions you expect to accept and explain what happens after the sale. That gives your finance and customer-service teams a clearer basis for comparison than a headline percentage considered on its own. It also exposes responsibilities that might otherwise remain unclear until the first problem arrives.
France: look at both regulation and routing
For covered EU consumer-card transactions, interchange is capped at 0.20% for debit and 0.30% for credit. Interchange is one part of the processing bill, so those caps are not the total rate a merchant pays. Ask for the full fee schedule and how available CB routes affect the quote. France also restricts payment-method surcharges; confirm the applicable rules before passing a cost to the customer.
United States: understand the cards your customers use
U.S. acceptance costs vary with the network, card type, merchant category and processor agreement. Debit regulation and credit-card pricing work differently, so a blended rate can obscure the mix underneath it. Give providers the same expected transaction profile and ask them to identify the fees included, the fees charged separately and the circumstances that change the price. That makes competing proposals easier to assess.
How you get paid shapes how a dispute is handled.
SEPA, the Single Euro Payments Area, provides common schemes for euro transfers and direct debits. But “bank payment” does not describe one uniform set of refund rights. A transfer sent to a supplier and a direct debit collected from a customer raise different questions about authorization, recovery and records. The same care applies to card and wallet disputes: establish who handles the request and what evidence your team must supply before you add the method.
The table separates the main issues merchants encounter. Exact rights and deadlines depend on the transaction, scheme and applicable rules; the SEPA refund periods shown apply specifically to the Core Direct Debit scheme.
| Payment method | What can go wrong | What happens if it is challenged | What to put in place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Card | Stolen card details, account takeover and disputed online or remote orders. | A customer may challenge an unauthorized payment. Bank refund rights and card-network chargeback procedures have different conditions and deadlines. | Use 3-D Secure where appropriate, screen orders and keep records of fulfillment and customer communication. |
| SEPA credit transfer | A convincing fake invoice or changed bank details can send the payment to the wrong recipient. | A payment sent after deception is different from one made without authorization. Asking the bank to recall a transfer does not guarantee recovery. | Confirm new recipients and changed bank details through a separate, trusted contact method. |
| SEPA Instant | Deception can send money to the wrong recipient before staff have time to intervene. | Payments are designed to arrive within seconds, leaving little time to stop a mistaken transfer. | Check the recipient before sending. Use Verification of Payee and investigate mismatches. |
| SEPA Core Direct Debit | A missing or invalid mandate, an unauthorized collection, or a refund request. | Under SEPA Core, payers can request a refund within 8 weeks without giving a reason; unauthorized collections can be challenged for up to 13 months. | Retain the mandate and make sure your cash-flow plan can accommodate returns and refunds. |
| PayPal / wallet | Account takeover or a customer challenging authorization, delivery or the service provided. | Protection depends on the wallet provider, the funding method and whether the transaction meets the relevant eligibility rules. | Check the provider’s protection terms and keep the delivery or service records they require. |
| Cheque | A cheque may be stolen, altered or used fraudulently. | Declining use has not eliminated cheque fraud. Confirm your bank’s handling of rejected or disputed cheques. | Set clear acceptance checks and escalation rules for unusual or high-value payments. |
Putting it to work
Six questions to take to your payment provider.
Bring your expected sales channels, order values, customer markets and transaction volumes to the conversation. Then ask the provider to answer these questions for that business profile. The aim is to leave with clear responsibilities and reporting you can use, not a general assurance that the platform supports international payments.
| Area | What to ask your payment provider |
|---|---|
| Checkout mix | Which payment methods fit our customers, and how will we measure checkout completion? |
| Authentication | How will you handle Strong Customer Authentication for applicable European payments, and report challenges, abandonment and fraud? |
| Card routing | Which CB and U.S. debit routes are available, how are they selected, and what does each cost? |
| Bank payments | What authorization, recipient checks, returns and reconciliation processes apply to each ACH or SEPA service? |
| Disputes | Who owns each refund or dispute, what are the deadlines, and which records must we retain? |
| Cross-border | Can we review approvals and fraud by card origin, transaction location and sales channel? |
Assign an owner to each process and review performance as the sales mix changes. A payment setup should remain understandable after launch, when real orders, refunds and exceptions begin testing it.
Sources and scope
Where the figures come from
- Banque de France · French payment behaviour in 2024 — physical checkout, online payments and wallets.
- Banque de France / OSMP · Annual Report 2024 — fraud by payment method, channel and geography.
- Banque de France / OSMP · H1 2025 fraud statistics — transfer/card shift and manipulation trends.
- EBA / ECB · 2025 Report on Payment Fraud — France issuer-side card benchmark and EEA comparison.
- Banque de France · Payment card FAQ — CB and co-badged routing.
- INSEE · French card-network context — CB share estimate.
- Federal Reserve Financial Services · 2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice — 2025 U.S. consumer behavior.
- Nilson Report · U.S. card fraud losses in 2023.
- Regulation (EU) 2015/751 — covered consumer-card interchange caps.
- French Ministry of Economy · Merchant payment rules — acceptance, minimums and surcharge rules.
- Federal Reserve · Regulation II FAQ — U.S. debit-card routing protections.
- European Payments Council · SEPA Direct Debit — Core refund rights and unauthorized collections.
Dates beside the figures identify the period measured, which may precede the report’s publication. OSMP’s French payment-system statistics and the EBA/ECB issuer-side card data cover different groups of transactions, so their French card rates need not match. Read each figure with the scope stated in its section.
Plan your next market with the payment details in view
Make the next payment conversation more useful.
Tell Durango Merchant Services where you sell, how customers pay and where your current setup falls short. We can help you review processing options, fraud controls and dispute handling around the transactions your business actually accepts.