Today, the Dutch central bank
published a report that debit-card usage is affected by news articles on fraud. On average, the number of daily debit card payments drops by a little over 2% on days that newspapers report on POS terminal fraud and by some 3% when skimming at ATMs is in the news. The news has the largest impact when it makes the headlines. Furthermore the news-effect increased after 2007, when fraud incidents more often happened and made it to the headlines.
DNB remarks that other factors also influence the payment intensity. Rainy days create a drop in shopping and thus in transaction traffic. And they also noted that the payment pattern returns to normal after one day, so the news-effect on payments doesn't last long.
